Reviewed onSaturday January 30
There’s little doubt that Newtown Social Club was one of the better venues for pub rockers Dallas Crane to stage their revival – it’s a compact, friendly and real damn personal space. When you can reach out and touch your fans almost entirely by accident, you have to factor in your relationship with a crowd that could pull you off the stage itself, given the right motivation.
It’s something Holy Soul fought against for their entire set. A small audience that chose to keep its distance didn’t help, sure, but the band’s reservations read as arrogance. The boys in front preferred to joke with each other than with the crowd, and drummer Kate Wilson seemed so utterly disinterested that she stared off to the side throughout their set. Aside from some accomplished guitar mangling by Jon Hunter, the songs themselves were a forgettable sludge that sounded like the Hoodoo Gurus battling depression.
By the time Dallas Crane made their descent to the stage, the vibe was significantly drunker and frontman Dave Larkin emerged to a welcoming roar of approval. They slammed straight into the new album with ‘The Sunnyside’ and the night got wild.
Larkin’s pipes have retained as much, if not more, gravel than Scoundrels could contain on vinyl and he’s well matched with the cleaner vocals of Pete Satchell. Even when taking the back seat, Larkin’s presence was irrepressible – he still has the fire and youthfulness of a man two decades younger, which was why his ol’ man rock’n’roll rant seemed so out of place.
“Bloody triple j or Double J or Single J, whatever they’re called these days,” he opined, to the audible sound of eyes rolling amid drunken concurrence from the middle-aged among us. It was the lamenting of music not played on “actual instruments” that showed Larkin’s age – why whine about music naturally evolving?
But back to the biff – Crane are at their best when barrelling through the bluesier side of their discography, and Scoundrels belters like ‘I’m Sorry Darling’, ‘Come To Light’ and ‘Billie’s Gonna Die Young’ had more heft in their natural state than on record. Crane are made for the pub stage, and they know and love it. They made sure the fans of old were well seen to, with ‘Sit On My Knee’ and ‘Dirty Hearts’ leading the charge into their hallowed past. New drummer Steve Pinkerton is the happiest motherfucker I’ve seen on a kit since Thomas Pridgen – he gets the band so well you’d think he was a founding member.
Pub rock is alive and well, and that’s a good thing, but it’s at its best when it isn’t drawing attention to its wrinkles.
