Hardly overawed by either venue or occasion, the warm tones of Melbourne act Howl At The Moon filled The Forum as the early crowd fetched their beers. Katie Scott’s measured vocals held their own as the flop haired band calmly entertained the appreciative crowd. Often chugging from bridge to verse and back again, the intermittent harmonies and drizzled guitars harked back to an early Fur Patrol set. Having been conceived in 2005, there may well be a link. Now holding aloft their debut album Squalls, Scott would lurch forward, dragging emotion through ‘Janet Leigh’ with a simple hook. Strong to start before a lull of material halted the rise.
As the booths filled, the floor groaned a little as we fetched more beers between supports pending arrival onstage of Mr. Ron S. Peno and The Superstitions. No nonsense, no qualms of kicking off with a bomb. Dressed well-but-curiously with his tie tucked in halfway down the front of his waistcoat, this man feels music. The grey suited knobbly knees had a touch of the Dylan-boogie, but that’s where the performance similarities end as Peno strode about the stage arms aloft. Nothing is forced nor is it underwhelming for the Died Pretty frontman as he and his band roared through their set.
The band, tight and warm. Peno, the weathered orator. Together they unleashed a matchless masterclass winding from baritone hollers to pulsating warbles driven by guitarist Cam Butler. Drawing much of the material from 2011’s Future Universe as well as the pleasant unveiling of some unrecorded new tracks, the drama uncovered would prove a perfect precursor to the main act. For all the hype among so many modern acts the world over, Ron S. Peno might look like a hyperactive Hans Moleman but he and his Superstitions are a clear benchmark. This should prove to be met by any of the Brunswick brown shoe brigade.
Enter the dark one. Lurching toward the mic with hardly a glance cast either side and not a moment lost before the scarily pointy jawed Mark Lanegan launched into ‘A Gravedigger’s Song’. Plucked from his acclaimed Blues Funeral album from early this year, the brooding bass gave way to Lanegan’s rattling tones.
Stood tall, clutching the mic stand with his left foot forward, as always, the distinctly familiar but uneasy leering baritone vocal rang out over the pondering heads as the lyric of “the magnolias bloom so sweet only torturing me…” laid bare a delivery to behold. It’s raw and rare in a pure form. The links between Tom Waits and the poets of old are clear and that’s what separates Mark Lanegan from his Seattle ‘grunge’ pioneers.
Still and unmoving while The Mark Lanegan Band swirled around him it does make you wonder if he writes fully conscious. Tracks flew by quickly as the firing veteran engine of The Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stoneage lay bare his unbroken concentration, masked by moody reflective glares all through ‘One Hundred Days’ from 2004’s Bubblegum through the ‘Riot In My House’ and ‘Ode To Sad Disco’ of the distant intensity spawned from Blues Funeral. While Lanegan held a firm pose, occasionally lapsing into a slightly creepy limp armed stance, the cobbled band of trusted hands would fall into line one by one. The swift, rumbling drums chimed with the guitars and keys while the man stood ever still.
Without allowing time for a pause alluding to a brief encore disappearance. There was little purpose to this, as not a single member of the worshipping crowd would have dared put a nasal hair out of place wrenching for attention. Returned and unmoving, Lanegan and co raced through an encore drawn from Bubblegum and Blues Funeral of ‘Pendulum,’ ‘Harborview Hospital’ and ‘Methamphetemine Blues’ with the brief introspective band introduction within, capping a minimalist interactive performance.
Grim and unrepentant, Lanegan trudged off to a roaring approval. Proving if nothing else that we owe so much to delivery above all else. The master interpreter left the stage, a staggering shadow of his high-held pose but not a bit less.
– Ciarán Wilcox
