Source : the age
By Rod Yates
TRAIN
ICC Sydney Theatre, May 24
Reviewed by ROD YATES
★★★½
Say what you will about American pop-rock veterans Train, but they work hard to get the audience on their side.
In third song If It’s Love, frontman Pat Monahan pulls out his phone and begins filming the room, asking the crowd to go crazy for the clip he’ll post to Instagram.
During an extended Meet Virginia, which gives guitarist Taylor Locke an opportunity to show off his chops, Monahan takes a break from singing to lob Train T-shirts into the masses.
The cleverly constructed set-list also plays its part with staples such as Hey, Soul Sister, Play That Song, a spirited Save Me, San Francisco and a beautifully tender Marry Me peppered with several moments tailored for the Sydney audience.
First is a cover of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know, with Scottish artist KT Tunstall – who earlier delivered a hugely entertaining support set – singing the parts made famous by Kimbra, before duetting with Monahan on the slick country pop of Train’s own Bruises.
The other surprise guest is INXS’ Andrew Farriss, who wanders onstage and dutifully makes it his own for renditions of INXS classics Never Tear Us Apart and Don’t Change.
The band even cede the spotlight before the latter so that Farriss can show off an abbreviated country-rock version of the song, which proves to be more puzzling than anything else.
Oddly, though, it’s in these moments that the show really comes to life, with Tunstall providing an injection of joyful energy, and Farriss an element of spontaneity, that are otherwise largely absent.
There’s no faulting the band, their musicianship or the smooth precision with which they perform hits such as Drive By or rousing finale Drops of Jupiter, every vocal harmony immaculate.
And at 56, Monahan still has a golden set of pipes and a dry wit to match, at one point announcing how much better Sydney is than Melbourne before adding, “Full disclosure: I said the same shit there.”
It’s a well-oiled performance by a seasoned band that knows exactly what it takes to do this, night in, night out.
But with a little more of that spontaneity, you’d have a show for the ages.
VIVID LIVE
SIGUR ROS
Opera House Concert Hall, May 23. Also May 24 and 25.
Reviewed by ROD YATES
★★★★
Before starting this tour, Icelandic three-piece Sigur Ros were at pains to point out these shows would be more than just a traditional group performance with the backing of an orchestra. Indeed, bassist Georg Holm told this masthead that concertgoers would be seeing “the orchestral version of the band”.
In this tour’s orchestral mode, Sigur Ros position themselves with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as part of the ensemble.Credit: Daniel Boud
And so it is that when the trio follow British conductor Robert Ames onstage, each member clad uniformly in black, they position themselves among the already seated Sydney Symphony Orchestra, rather than at the front of the stage. The message is clear: Sigur Ros are a part of the ensemble, no more or less important than the 41 musicians surrounding them.
It’s a point made time and again throughout this two-hour excursion through the band’s cinematic, often ethereal catalogue, from the title track of their 1997 debut album Von to material from their latest, 2023’s Atta.
The rich cellos that usher in Untitled #1 – Vaka lend it a warmer, more sombre gravitas than its recorded counterpart; the rousing oompah climax of the exquisite Se Lest benefits from the added bombast, one of the rare occasions the orchestra takes full-blooded flight.
The very presence of the SSO affords the band the opportunity to realise the string-laden Staralfur in all its glory, a feat they long stopped trying in their more traditional live shows.
They are masters of navigating dynamic musical ebbs and flows; as Ekki Mukk draws to a close and the orchestra slowly dissipates, Kjartan Sveinsson’s haunting keyboard refrain is rendered even more fragile by virtue of the sound that came before it, a contrast that renders the audience completely silent as the notes fade to a whisper.
On occasion the songs do tend to blend into one another, vocalist Jonsi Birgisson’s majestic falsetto (an instrument in itself) gliding above the sweeping strings. It would, however, be a disservice to label it repetitive – instead the effect is more hypnotic and dreamlike, as though the entire Opera House is one giant, fully immersive sound bath.
A triumphant Hoppipolla concludes with Sigur Ros leaving the stage, after which the SSO bring the evening to a close with a volcanic, thunderous Avalon.
When the band return to soak up two standing ovations, their musical spell has finally been broken, replaced with an outpouring of gratitude and joy.
