Prince of Wales (JJJ Live at the Wireless Gig)

Review

provided by "Cat" in the forums (click here for more discussion)

I am afraid I have a memory like a sieve, so I cannot give you tracklists or anything fancy like that, but I will tell you what I can.

The Cat Empire came on stage at around 9.05, together with the Empire Horns, and the first tune as far as I can remember was Two Shoes. The boys seemed like they were on their best behaviour as they were being recorded for Live at the Wireless. Felix said they would be doing mostly their new stuff, so we got a taste of things to come off their new album. I think it is always difficult to give impressions when you hear something for the first time…but there seemed to be some great tunes in there. The only tune of their old album they played was The Chariot. They were in fine dancing form, and during Sly the girl who features in the film clip (is it Felix’s girlfriend?) popped onto the stage to boogie with the boys for just a minute, but left before the end of the song.

Following the end of their set, they thanked JJJ etc, exited the stage, and the crowd kept applauding, whistling etc. They returned, I thought that we would be lucky enough to get an encore or two, but Felix announced that the past hour had been performed by them as if they were being recorded, and they would spend time now just “f***ing around, and playing more stuff from the new album”.

This is when things started getting more interesting. I am not one who has been to many TCE gigs, but the boys seemed really happy to be there…dancing, Harry jumping around and getting into it, and the music too, was brilliant. Those guys are truly amazing, and I really think that Ollie shone last night on keyboard. As well as new stuff, they played The Rhythm and Paul Kelly’s Dumb Things.

All in all, it was a great night. There were a few disappointments for me – one is purely personal, in that I would have loved to have a few more of their old songs played. I understand that this night was to showcase their new stuff, but there is nothing like being able to sing along. Secondly, I was disappointed with the crowd. At a gig like the St Kilda Festival I understand if everyone is just standing around, not moving, not really getting into it – they probably weren’t fans to begin with. But in a smaller venue, with people who you would hope are fans, how could you not have a good time? There was only a small group of people who were doing any more than just moving their shoulders a little bit, and I am proud to say that my sister and I were two of them! These people must be near corpses if The Cat Empire did not get them moving! I think they finished playing at around 10.50pm.

For more discussion, see this thread in the forums.