Underground Lovers

Band reunions are about shared memories, a back and forth between audience and artist. But when the definitive line-up of Underground Lovers played their first show together in 15 years, the group, typically, strove for the opposite effect: they tried to wipe away the nostalgia and the narrative, until there was only that roiling, thunderous wall of sound left. They wanted sound as ever, a time-machine instead of a flashback.

At first the audience didn’t come into it. The Toff, on Melbourne Cup eve, was close to capacity, but it was a matter of the instrumentalists – guitarist Glenn Bennie, keyboardist/vocalist Philippa Nihill, drummer Richard Andrew and bassist Maurice Argiro – trying to cut vocalist Vincent Giarrusso loose from his moorings. The band’s best shows had always seen the singer sent into a shuffling, possessed trance and that doesn’t come easily, if ever, after such a long absence.

Sticking to their first three albums (1991’s self-titled debut, 1992’s Leaves Me Blind and 1994’s Dream It Down) they opened with ‘Nice G.I.’, which proved that Baghdad references and American imperialism are near timeless. Giarrusso bounced up and down, but there was a theatrical edge to his vocal performance that indicated nerves. A few numbers in, with ‘Get to Notice’, Bennie’s guitar moved beyond the mere rousing, and slowly they locked into something deeper and possessive.

The rhythm section remained a study in contrasts: precise funk inflections from Argiro, who finally has the distinguished grey hair to match his boulevardier outlook, versus the rattling backbeat of Andrew, who thankfully no longer looks like he’s starving – even though he still plays with his head thrown back and to his left. It’s as if the sound has clocked him right on the jaw.

Nihill’s lead vocals peppered the set and she needed no time to acclimatise, summoning the icy, immaculate detachment of ‘Holiday’ and ‘I Was Right’. By the latter, Bennie was starting to take heads off and he found the vast oceanic echoes that the rumble of ‘Eastside Stories’ requires. The song left Giarrusso dancing at the rear of the stage and for the final few numbers of the main set he gave himself over to the music.

The slashing drones of ‘Get Off On It’ followed – one of the few songs tinkered with, a keyboard line of cantering bells adding to the mesmeric effect – before the accumulative might of ‘Your Eyes’ built over nine minutes. It was a finale that restated Underground Lovers’ ambition. As fans of post-punk noise who insisted that groove could be just as powerful, they’d been one of the first groups to demand that indie kids take heed of their hips.

The encores were loose and celebratory, as the band knew that they had done enough. Underground Lovers weren’t magically better than they had previously been – you can only storm the Winter Palace once – but they did enough to convince the audience, and more importantly themselves, that they could still hold their own. They were good verging on the great and if this show was a starting point they’ll turn more than a few heads, old and young, over the coming two months.

by Craig Mathieson