Live

Rip It Up, Issue 21, 1 April 1979, Page 12

Live

Sure-footed Frenzy Split Enz Regent Theatre, Dunedin. "They get better everytime” would be a fair comment on Split Enz's unerring rapid fire concert in Dunedin at the end of March. Finn led the men in the funny suits through most of Frenzy and Dizyrthmia but it was what they didn’t play that was the most revealing. Gone are the epics, Split Enz as Frenzy testifies, have moved with the times and are now closer to being classified as a mainstream rock band than at anytime in the past. They still have that on-stage loonery and Crombie on spoons and percussion, but it was the almost offhand confidence of the band as they ripped through their two part show that had the crowd on their feet in the second half. "Abu Dhabi" stood out. "True Colours" and "Maybe" were dusted down for old time’s sake and the future was catered for with "Hypnotised” and "Mongolia" and they sound good. Two encores and the band left it at that. They may look like they believe in the art school tag landed on them by the media two or three years ago, but. Frenzy and the all-out, danceable, live Split Enz spells the beginning of a new era for the band. I think it’s their best yet. George Kay

Hello Sailor Main Street So this is what happens when your local guitar band goes to LA, plays a few gigs, and returns. They get a new manager. They get lean. They get tight. Main Street on a Sunday night is loaded with musicians, business faces, elegant ladies in elegant clothes, all sorts of pretty boys, and for good measure, the waitresses in (their usual?) tiny-skirts-and-cleavage rigs. Oh my. All a person can do is hold on to the table and order another drink. A band called Baker opened. They were terrible. I don’t know how they thought they could get away with it. They did. Polite applause ensued. At length les matelots bonjours appear, causing instant dance floor space-in, instant ranks of the wide-eyed. They plug in and whack into it and it becomes obvious that they are together. Not only that, but for once their sound is clean as clean, if as always well above the pain levels up close. Ricky Ball plays like a steamhammer, solid. Harry and Dave, in addition to their gapless guitar, hit the backup vocals hard and right on the note. You can hear them too. Lyle Kinney doesn’t put a foot wrong. And Graham Brazier, well, the boy’s lost weight. His act has got slicker, but he doesn’t look any happier. They do "Boys From Brazil”, and his puppetlike movements are so convincing I start to wonder. His voice is in great shape. What you get; mostly old stuff, with the emphasis on the tougher tunes. No “Lying In The Sand" tonight, this is a rock'n’roll band. I wanted to hear "All Around This Town", but you can’t have it all your own way. The new tunes aren’t an instant K. 0., but then the old ones took a while to sink in too. Gimme a few listens and I’ll let you know. They no different, but they better than ever. John Malloy

Mi-Sex Th'Dudes Maidment Theatre Far from accepting as a foregone conclusion the sort of welcome reserved for local boys made good, Mi-Sex came on strongly right from tbe start. The pace seldom slackened throughout the set which displayed the band’s undoubted professionalism and controlled energy. Arguably the enthusiastic response of the audience was predictable but no one could deny that Mi-Sex had earned it. As for their new original material, it was primarily hard rock based with futurist and theatrical overtones. Ultravox is an obvious

reference point. If it was a shade samey or a little over extended in parts the uniformly enthusiastic audience response showed no sign of it. Similarly the leather pants, light show and assorted theatrics went down well with the audience. So it seems Steve Gilpin and his men have got on to a winning formula here. Though personally I am not a fan, no one could begrudge the success of a band that is willing to work so hard to entertain their audience. If Mi-Sex have already proved their worth internationally then the show openers, Th'Dudes, look set to do so in the not too distant future. Musically the band has had the necessary credentials for a good while. Now they appear to be putting together the image and live act to do full justice to their musical prowess. The frontline, vocalist Urlich and the guitars of Morris and Dobbyn, is especially impressive. All in all it was a night local rock'n’roll could be proud of. Dominic Free

1860 Band 1860 Tavern Residencies breed lethargy. A band that starts off red hot can find itself devoid of inspiration after two years or more playing the same gig. That can’t exactly be said about the 1860 Band as yet, but there’s no doubt that, after three years at the tavern that gave them their name, they are in danger of falling into that trap of complacency. Yes indeed, many an afternoon I’ve weaved in and crawled out of the 1860 with,modern jazz still ringing in my ears. However, it’s been a while since my last visit and there have been a couple of changes in the band. Rob Winch has replaced Dave Pearson on bass, while Rob’s brother Martin has joined on the guitar. For those not familiar with the group, Rodger Fox (trombone), Geoff Culverwell (trumpet), Peter Blake (keyboards) and Billy Brown (drums) complete the line-up. All six musicians have the opportunity to display their individual virtuosity during the afternoon and all never fail to impress. The big-

gest reception is usually reserved for Billy Brown but on this day Rob Winch's rendition of "Bahama Mama” stole the show for me. My one complaint is the synthetic over-kill (almost all use some type of electronic gadget) which threatens to camouflage their obvious talent. Territorially, the band are home and hosed, but one wonders how they’ll fare elsewhere. Say Auckland’s Main Street, where they are booked to appear in late May. I see no problems though. Anyone with a musical ear should recognise their collective talent as a unit and as individual instrumentalists. John Dix Debbie and the Dum Dums Auckland University Answering a call from the NZ Students' Arts Council, Debbie and the Dum Dums recently got their schiz together for an orientation campus tour. What a way to start a year! Their lineage, of course, is impeccable: Derek Ward, a founding member of The Ratz, The Boys and Zazou Clowns; Miles McKane, of diverse talent and a Snoid from the Plague; Deborah Filler, ex-Ratz and once the singer for the sadly defunct Big Deal; and Sarah Peirse, a recent graduate of Theatre Corporate’s drama school. First off in the three-part programme was Politiks Can Be Fun, a series of short schiz including old favourites from The Ratz and Zazou repertoire. With their overblown characters

and somewhat deflated social comment, these pieces may have rankled the self-consciously political. But so what? Parliamentarian-eating frogs are funnier than more miss than hit Muldoon jokes anyway. But then perhaps they were reserving the venom for their central piece, Love Circus. Slated by some as yet another arty-intellectuals-attack-marriage-and suburbanites tyle-about-which-they-know-nothing-anyway bit of theatrical fluff, this was, for me, the highpoint of the show. The targets were well-chosen with no facile solutions offered. Best of all, they were achingly sympathetic to all sides, which is surely not the approach of the self-satisfied or snide. Wrapping it all up was Cafe Liveria, a day in the life accompanied by those crazies, Heart, Melancholy, Madness and Ego. Sardonic, witty and perceptive it nevertheless lacked something of the strength of the previous piece. Perhaps, in spite of their poetry, the rhyming couplets into which the entire piece had been transcribed, were to blame. But this is to quibble. Debbie and the Dum Dums are a potent and complementary mixture of exceptionally talented individuals, full of fancy and fun. If the straight shooting confrontation techniques adopted so successfully by The Ratz have been all but rejected, their replacement with a more whimsical style can only a test to the maturity and professionalism of this new troupe. Long may they loon. Louise Chunn