After years together Adelaide’s own The Transatlantics announced that they were going on a temporary hiatus from the music scene.
The past six years have seen them release three singles, an LP and an album, perform at intrastate, interstate and national festivals and revive 60s/70s funk and soul with a sharply modern dynamic that few other bands can lay claim to.
Not ones to leave without the proper sentiments, The Transatlantics played one final show in their hometown to their friends, families, and everyone in between.
Max Savage, frontman of Max Savage & The False Idols, was vigorously demanding in his presence. With an underlying twang of ferocious desperation burning the foundation of each number, Savage wholeheartedly lived up to his name.
With a savage swagger, dripping in country/blues sensibilities, this musician growled and groped at the audience before him. His band behind raced alongside the vocals, building the songs into heavy aural layers that crashed down on the venue.
The crowd had grown and begun to pulse excitedly, with fans dancing along the unguarded front row and reaching toward the animated performers.
The end of Savage’s set welcomed a burst of newcomers, crowding in for the main act of the night. With such a large number of artists, it would be easy for The Transatlantics to seem uncomfortably large on such a small stage.
However, with their nine-strong lineup, each member of this close-to faultless band held the sound together with an unfaltering tightness and character. Never coming close to seeming superfluous, each musician held a strong sense of worth within the music being created.
Smartly dressed in matching blue suits and bowties, the brass, string and percussion component of the band caved deeply into their respective instruments. The outcome, an explosion of groove and funk, complemented the raw power of vocalists Tara Lynch and Laura Knowling. A synchronisation of moves and tempo absorbed the masses below, and the caressing motions of Lynch’s dancing translated smoothly in her voice.
Regardless, the organised harmony of each member and their movements never felt calculated or unnatural – rather, it was a strange comfort that drew each admirer back to the ambiance of yesteryear.
Rolling through favourites A Man Like That, Find My Way Home, Couldn’t Be Him and What A Man with a professional ease, it is no surprise that the headliners are so often praised for their live performances.
Their recorded discography paling in comparison to their set, The Transatlantics thanked all their supporters for having them for the last six years and bounded off stage, traveling in their own separate directions – for now.
