It can’t be said that since being ‘discovered’ by Triple J’s ‘Unearthed’ initiative that Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! have taken off like a figurative rocket. This band from Adelaide formed back in 2006, but it took them until 2010 to release their first album. Certainly they’ve been touring and have put a few songs out there, but generally speaking you wouldn’t say they were prolific. Self-discovery takes time however, and this band’s musical offerings highlight their growth as a unit and act as artistic markers for the periods when certain concepts, ideas and styles were explored. An effect of this slow, meandering development is the positive observation that any performance by Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! is varied and, to a degree, unpredictable. Also, the fact that there are six band members means that there is huge musical scope that they can and have tapped into. They already have a loyal fan base, and with further media exposure they should gather quite a large following.
Frankie & The Heartstrings hail from Sunderland in the U.K. Sunderland has been described as ‘a dowdy, dark hole of a place’, which, for any loyal Sunderlandite, would be quite a slap. Still, we know that great art is produced as a result of even greater suffering and apparently Sunderland is a hotbed of talented and aspiring young musicians. Thank the good Lord that this band saw fit to share their talent with the likes of us. Unlike Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! Frankie and Co. haven’t been backwards in coming forwards.
They formed in 2008, and have already played most of the big festivals in Blighty. Visually they are interesting, with an exerted effort not to look like high-street clones. Their music has been compared to that of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, but there aren’t many contemporary bands playing that brand of retro pop. Band members would tell you that the doom and gloom of Thatcherism and its fallout is very much the essence of what makes a ‘northener’ even today, and this band’s song lyrics are typical of those written in insecure times. Apparently the guys have a wicked sense of humour though, which highlights the need to laugh or go insane when the world presents absurdities.
Anyone who has listened to the radio in the last fifteen or so years, has to recognise Eskimo Joe. These days they are less alternative than mainstream, but that comes with being popular and receiving a shiteload of radio airplay. This Ghosts of the Past tour purports to introduce the songs off their fifth album to us, yet ‘Love is a Drug’ has been played on high rotation for some time and so a few of the songs from this ‘new’ effort are already very familiar.
By the time Eskimo Joe came onstage, quite a number of punters were already ‘Brahms and Liszt’ so the floorshow was almost as entertaining as the stage show. The Joe’s are exceptionally clever in that they didn’t play Ghosts Of The Past from the first to last track. Songs from Black Fingernails, Red Wine, A Song Is A City and Inshalla were sprinkled amongst the new stuff, and allowed us all to go off of a retrospective jaunt. Eskimo Joe sound great live, and that’s an understatement.
Highlights were many, and included ‘From The Sea’, ‘Echo’ (the next single from the new album), ‘Foreign Land’ and of course, ‘Love is a Drug’, which took on an engaging raw edge. Now most of the band members are ‘elderly’ 30ish gentlemen with children, the songs detail their reminiscences and exude a confidence that perhaps wasn’t present in earlier stuff. The band is now comfortable enough to play music without over engineering the sound. They know they can relax and produce music without the angst, and that the punters will still love what they come up with. Maybe this is the indicator of when we can say musicians have truly come of age. What a great gig.
– Sharon Brookes
