Category Archives: Review

Live Review, Melbourne, Music, news, Review, tour

Live Review : Live – The Reunion World Tour at Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne – 17 November 2017

Review by Natasha Wyborn

Live – The Reunion World Tour at Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne – 17 November 2017
Photographer : David Jackson

What a perfect night for Melbourne’s share of the “Live” reunion.
Live supported by Lifehouse and The Calling – 17th November 2017 – Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne Victoria.

Melbourne turned on the weather for show two of Live’s Australian Reunion Tour on Friday night. under a perfect sunset, the band who most music lovers believed would never play together again, did just that and entertained a 7,000 crowd with passion and perfection. Melbourne was the second of only three shows in Australia for this tour.
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Live Review, Melbourne, news, Review, tour

Live Review : Stevie Nicks ’24 Karat Gold Tour’ with Pretenders (Chrissie Hynde) at Rochford Wines Yarra Valley Victoria – 18 November 2017

Review by Natasha Wyborn

Stevie Nicks + Pretenders (Chrissie Hynde) at A Day On THe Green – Rochford Wines Yarra Valley Victoria – 18 November 2017
Photographer : David Jackson

Neither an electric storm or pouring rain could stop the final show of the 24 Karat Gold tour held at Rochford Wines in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. The latest instalment of A Day on the Green pitted two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers on the one bill. Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde from Akron, Ohio was brought up on the punk side of town mentored by Malcolm McLaren. On the other side is Stevie Nicks from Phoenix, Arizona a member of one of the most influential bands in music history. Given these ladies musical roots, both should have been on a collision course to destroy each other, that said, they are the best of friends. It’s a “storytellers” tour Nicks told the audience early in her set.
Continue reading Live Review : Stevie Nicks ’24 Karat Gold Tour’ with Pretenders (Chrissie Hynde) at Rochford Wines Yarra Valley Victoria – 18 November 2017 →

Live Review, Melbourne, news, Review

Live Review : Rock at the Races – Wagga Wagga – 11 November 2017

Review by Natasha Wyborn

If someone thought the 80’s were dead and buried no-one told the sell out crowd at Wagga Wagga on the weekend. The Murrumbidgee Turf Club opened its gates to over 3,000 people on Saturday to celebrate some of the best 70’s, 80’s and 90’s Australian music had to offer. Taking the crowd back to a time when a beer was a dollar and the most songs you could fit on a cassette was 12, social media and the internet were years away but somehow we survived.
Continue reading Live Review : Rock at the Races – Wagga Wagga – 11 November 2017 →

Live Review, Melbourne, news, Review

Live Review : Midnight Oil at Gateway Lakes, Wodonga- 3 November 2017

Review by Natasha Wyborn
Photos by David Jackson

Midnight Oil at Gateway Lakes, Wodonga- 3 November 2017

As Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett belted out the lyrics to the Oils classic Blue Sky Mine “Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night” to another sellout crowd on Friday night you couldn’t help but wonder that if the band was being rewarded exclusively in food this show would be worthy of a 10 course executive meal. Gateway Lakes Wodonga and a sell out crowd of over 12,000 was the current stopover on the bands Great Circle World Tour. The packed venue comprising of an audience of all ages was primed and ready for arguable Australia’s greatest band.
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Album Review, news, Review

Album Review : Supersonic Blues Machine – Californisoul

Review by Peter Coates

This is the second album release for the blues rock collective that is Supersonic Blues Machine – three great and well-respected musicians at the core of the band in Fabrizio Grossi (Bass), Kenny Aronoff (Drums) and Lance Lopez (Vocals / Guitar), and a bunch of “friends” guesting on the album and at the live shows the band gets to play.
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Live Review, Melbourne, news, Review, tour

Live Review : Alison Moyet – Live at Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne – 7th October 2017

Alison Moyet at Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne – 07 October 2017
Photographer: David Jackson

Review by Natasha Wyborn

Gratitude & Attitude

Alison Moyet Live at Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne – Saturday 7th October 2017

British singer Alison Moyet included Australia on her itinerary for the first time in 30 years as part of her current Electric World Tour.
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Live Review, Melbourne, Review, tour

Live Review : Tina Arena at Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo – 13 September 2017

Written by Natasha Wyborn

Quiet please there’s a lady on stage and boy what a lady she is. In todays music industry marked with tantrums and constant drama Tina Arena is a stand out, a survivor. In fact Tina has been a star since she first hit Australian television as part of the Young Talent Team all those years ago. Unlike a lot of artists Arena’s history is promoted proudly throughout the show. There is reference to it and photographs on the multiple screens provide the audience to transform back to a time when life was so much simpler.
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Album Review, Peter Coates, Review

EP Review : BLACK STONE CHERRY – Black to Blues

Review by Pete Coates

Fresh on the heels of Black Stone Cherry’s recent trips to Australia, first as support to Steel Panther, and then on their first headlining tour of some smaller club venues, the band took some time out to spend two days recording a set of their favourite blues tracks, from the artists who influenced them as they grew up, and whose tracks they jammed to in the various garages they used to rehearse in. Now these are the songs they listen to on the tour bus sharing a bourbon or two!
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Album Review, news, Review

Album Review : Walter Trout – We’re All In This Together

Review by Peter Coates

One of the old guard of the US Blues battalion, equally respected by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Canned Heat and John Mayall with whom he earned his stripes in the 1970s and 1980s, and the young upstarts of the industry, such as Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Bonamassa and Eric Gales, Walter Trout has basically gathered together a who’s who of the modern blues family to perform with him and his band in a joyous project that really delivers a fantastic collection of original tracks written by Trout specifically for the guitarist joining him for the track (with a little help from his wife in channelling the different blues styles to the right guest!).
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Album Review, news, Review

Album Review : Simo – ‘Rise & Shine’

Review by Peter Coates

Another Nashville trio who spends more time on the road than in the studio, performing live, writing on the bus and in dressing rooms, with 215 shows in 2016 supporting their debut album, Let Love Show The Way, SIMO are way more than just a vehicle for the ridiculously talented singer / guitarist JD Simo, whose serious blues chops were showcased in the loud and raucous songs on the first album.
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Album Review, Brisbane, Peter Coates, Review

Album Review : THE DUSTFLOWERS – GET THERE

Review by Peter Coates

Brisbane band The Dustflowers belong somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line in the southern USA, with their first release ‘Get There’ a collection of 5 songs that are gritty hip-swinging blues-rockers with a country twist, or country-rock with some added soul! You can take your pick – whatever style you like, the songs are all class! Recorded on the Gold Coast at Blind Boy Studios, and produced by Brad Hosking, a well-known session player and producer, this EP is a great intro to an Aussie band with stacks of international appeal.
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Brisbane, Live Review, Peter Coates, Photos, Review

Live Review + Photos : TRAIN at The Tivoli, Brisbane – 31 July 2017 (support J.R. Reyne)

Review and photo by Peter Coates

The original band’s front man Patrick Monahan is Train now, offering up a greatest hits set, with a terrific sound and production, supported by a band of very competent session musicians and two female backing vocalists bulking up the harmonies.
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Album Review, news, Review

Album Review : Sonny Landreth – Recorded Live In Lafayette


Another high quality and interesting release from Provogue / Mascot Label Group which is becoming something of a powerhouse for both established and up and coming blues artists of all persuasions. Clyde Vernon “Sonny” Landreth is a renowned slide guitarist, and “the King of Slydeco”, hailing from the deep south of the USA in Mississippi who has been based in Lafayette for many years . His background includes being part of both John Hiatt’s band and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, as well as featuring on both live and studio recordings with the likes of Marshall Crenshaw, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, Little Feat and Mark Knopfler.
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Live Review, Meghan Player, Photos, Review, Sydney

Live Review + Photos : Grinspoon at Enmore Theatre, Sydney – 6th & 7th July, 2017

Review and Photos by Meghan Player

Grinspoon at Enmore Theatre, Sydney – July 2017
Photographer: Meghan Player

There’s little doubt that Grinspoon’s return to touring wouldn’t have received the response they have thus far.

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Album Review, news, Peter Coates, Review

Album Review : SHAMAN’S HARVEST – Red Hands Black Deeds

Review by Peter Coates

There is a haunting menace to the vocal arrangement in the title track of this latest release from the Jefferson City, Missouri southern country alt-rockers Shaman’s Harvest…….a band I am ashamed to admit had passed me by until this, Red Hands Black Deeds, their 6 th studio album was promised for review.
Continue reading Album Review : SHAMAN’S HARVEST – Red Hands Black Deeds →