Review: San Valentino Bordello Show at The Globe, Brisbane 14 February 2009
Author: Lisa Lamb
Who knows when the fifties revival began? Maybe with *The Stray Cats* in the eighties, maybe in the seventies with Grease and Happy Days, or maybe The Wintersun Festival helping bring modern rockabilly rebels and greaser bands in to the limelight, such as Paulie & his Crazy Rhythm Boys, who opened the show on the foyer stage in authentic fifites style with thier double bass, duck tails, pants and guitars under the armpits. Some music is simply meant to be heard live, and rockabilly is one of them! The energy just makes you want to get up and shake to the rythm. It was like a scene from Back to the Future and this was the McFly band discovering Rock n Roll.
On the main stage The Wretched Villains stand out from the crowd sounding like an alternate gothic rock band from the late eighties, with influences from Nick Cave and Siouxie & the Banshees. Drawing upon the deep swamp blues and British post punk they produce a dark, classic and haunting sound giving a good contrast to the lightweight fifties sounds in the foyer.
If Paulie & his Crazy Rhythm Boys are the McFly band then The Ten Fours are surely the Biff Tannen band, much more hard core, heavy blues and nostalgia. They have been discribed as sounding like “Grinding gears, double clutchin’ and sleeping on the side of the road with a bull horn for an alarm clock.” Which pretty much sums it up. These are serious bluesmen on a wild ride, with names like
Mad Morty, the Reverand T Bone and Pony (one mean looking dude) on screaming lead vocals and rythm guitar. Giving the audience some Detroit diesel powered ear candy.
*Red Devotchkin* is more tease than sleaze and very familar with the fifties scene having a great passion for that era, she has cheorgraphed a sweet and innocent burlesque act to Dream a Little Dream involving vintage lingerie, a secretary and her nightie. It leaves many a heart a fluttering.
From the hottest, wettest most nasty swamp, where the crocs snap and bite and so do the guitars, come The Medicine Show. The music is raw and dirty, sounding like it just came from the Missisippi Delta. Spreading thier home spun blues philosophy through thier gritty lyrics like you’ve got to dig deep if you want to find oil and If I don’t get my whiskey I surely will die. Thier songs are highly entertaining with a loose narrative and a trance like rythm and groove.