On occasion, classic album tours really feel like they’re worth the excitement they seem to generate. This is one of them with You Am I playing Hi Fi Way and Hourly Daily, back to back. The twin soundtracks to so many house parties, Sunday sessions, summer drives and barbeques for 30 somethings who hit their teen years in the 90s.
The timing of this one is for devotees only though. Walking through Fortitude Valley’s quieter streets to the venue we hear whispers of a new Prime Minister and shouts emanating from surrounding pubs as the State Of Origin gets underway, so the crowd is a little thin on the ground. But as the lights dim and an old timey narrator takes us through an aural museum of music, the bars on the venue’s wings quickly empty and a cheering throng of The Tivoli, full to about three quarters, rises to full voice.
Tim Rogers saunters on stage with an acoustic guitar. He plays the first few bars of Hourly Daily under a single spotlight and by the time he croons “don’t let there be something sour in my coffee” the goosebumps have well and truly formed. The lightly strummed guitar with the haunting cello and Rogers’ early morning lyrics of “pray the daybreak sun, can fill up the halls of a sleepless night” lays the groundwork down for the rest of the set as the stage becomes a time machine.
He is joined by the rest of the band, Davey Lane, Andy Kent, Rusty Hopkinson, and Stevie Hesketh plus the occasional string or brass section to take us through the 15 song set, happy to oblige the fans their nostalgia with stirring versions of ‘Good Mornin’’, ‘If We Can’t Get It Together’, and ‘Please Don’t Ask Me To Smile’. Crowd favourite ‘Wally Raffles’ is particularly inspired, featuring syncopated guitar solos with Lane and Rogers hammering out the most upbeat of solos in perfect time while the crowd looked on in 90s comatose.
Contrary to popular frontman banter, Rogers’ opts for gibberish with bizarre accents between songs often peppered with lyrical hints. In one of his more legible moments, he accuses the audience of tweeting about his chequered pants (which are undeniably ridiculous) and don’t his let his maroon blazer fool you, he has no interest in the Origin, which has stolen much of his crowd!
If Hourly Daily is a carefully constructed complete work then Hi Fi Way is guitar rock 101. It’s little wonder why the band chose to finish with this, the noisier of the two with big riffs ranging in style from punk to classic rock with influences from the likes of Cold Chisel and The Who laid bare. The energy of the tracks have not faded over the years and during ‘Cathy’s Clown’ you could feel the upstairs balcony heaving under the strain of stamping feet and it didn’t help matters as the unrelentingly crowd welcomed in the even rockier ‘Jewels And Bullets’ straight after.
The album is a blizzard of creativity and you can hear the urgency in every chord. Toward the end of the set Rogers says “If it looks like a lot of fun playing these songs, it’s because it is”. It’s this kind of passion that keeps a working band working and the fans coming back.
The band returned to the stage all guns blazing for an encore which peaked with a filthy, jammed out, heavy rock rendition of Mose Allison’s ‘Young Man Blues’ before departing a rapturous audience.
With the first announced date of Thursday night sold out, the band booked themselves in for Origin night with the game being played not three kilometres away. This may not be seen as a smart move in some circles, but as far as I’m concerned, those who travelled to Suncorp to watch Queensland level the series missed out. They missed a legendary Australian band play like they just released these two stellar albums a month ago. It could’ve been 1996!
