About a year ago, I was at the Metro Theatre watching All Our Exes Live In Texas support Nathaniel Rateliff. A week prior, in that same room I had witnessed St. Paul and The Broken Bones seduce an audience with more bombastic charm than a month of Billy Grahams, and thought that a St. Paul/Exes combo would make for one hell of a pairing. Turns out we didn’t need to wait very long for the prophecy to come true.
Both acts are natural raconteurs, though while St. Paul brings the full fury of Southern Soul and gospel grandiloquence, the Exes are more at ease with music hall patter; they hook you in with self-deprecating asides and endearing foibles as much as the music itself. That said, their set – mostly pulled from their debut LP – was strong, structured to allow each member to showcase their respective talents. Their harmonies are outrageously good, and one of the safest bets in the biz is that theirs is a band on an amazing trajectory. Hard to pull a highlight when there’s such variety, but at gunpoint I’d probably favour ‘Boundary Road’.
I’d seen St. Paul at Bluesfest just a few nights before and was a touch uncertain what to anticipate. Following their last Metro gig, I’d talked up their festival appearance past all point of reason, and when they took to the Byron stage this year, well, it was somewhat of a shaky start. However, it took little time for them to hit their stride and deliver a searing set, and you’d be hard-pressed to think of a performer who can summon such theatricality, energy, and with such pipes as Paul – the man could damn near sing Otis Redding back from the dead.
Suffice to say, when the band descended on Sydney, it was after a run of loud, dance-dappled performances, and some of the weariness was beginning to show. Don’t get me wrong; I had a freakin’ blast. From St. Paul’s fire-engine-red lounge suit and single gold shoe abandoned onstage, to the sirens’ song of the horn section (really, some of those solos were just unbelievable), to the passion of the crowd, it was grand.
In a nice touch, they even tipped their hat to the Exes by following the girls’ lead and covering Tame Impala’s ‘Eventually’ (and threw back to their first Sydney show with a revival of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’).
But while the energy rarely wavered, the guys did look tired, and St. Paul’s still stunning vocals didn’t have quite the usual outrageous sustain. Nevertheless, they are one fiendishly fun band, and any time they pitch their tent on the outskirts of town, you’ll find me there among the acolytes.
St. Paul And The Broken Bones played the Metro Theatre on Wednesday April 19. Photo by Ashley Mar
