On a very hot Saturday night in Melbourne at the Corner Hotel in Richmond ‘The Best Things’ on Tour was on. Luckily the band room had great air conditioning for the very hot 80’s and 90’s rock played on stage. Opening the show was Boom Crash Opera. Now, I had seen Boom Crash Opera recently at the One Electric Day Werribee Mansion Festival, so I was very interested to see them up-close with a smaller crowd in a enclosed room.
I am very happy to say that Boom Crash Opera rocked. I enjoyed this performance even more than the last time that I saw them. Boom Crash Opera played fourteen songs during a fifty-minute set. With Dale Ryder on vocals, Peter Farnan on guitar and vocals, Peter Maslen on drums and John Favaro on bass and back up vocals.
Dale shone on stage in a all white outfit with bare feet. The band of musicians are top notch and musically tight. Peter Farnan’s guitar looks like it has seen better days, held together with black tape, but boy can he play and make that guitar sing. Playing his solos with his teeth and leaving the stage to play at the barrier, even treating punters to one of his songs ‘Hello’. Not to be left out ‘Better Days’ had great bass and drum solos too.
This was a performance of infectious happiness, which the mainly middle aged crowd fully participated in, singing loudly and at one stage the whole room was bouncing and dancing to ‘Dancing in the storm’. Boom Crash Opera closed with ‘Onion Skin’, with the crowd going off, sharing much love with the band. To quote Peter Farnan “we are just doing a couple of hits from the 80’s and 90’s” and in my opinion they did them brilliantly.
The second performance of the night was 1927. They played a twelve song set which last around a hour. Headed by Eric Weideman, the only original member of the band, on guitar and lead vocals. Eric has surrounded himself with very talented musicians on drums, guitar, bass and keyboards. The modern version of 1927 sound very similar to the original line up and though Eric’s voice did have some trouble hitting some of the high notes, he still has that distinctive sound of the old days.
1927 had some iconic hits, especially off the ‘Ish’ album and the crowd were not disappointed as all the hits were played. The punters were treated to some great musical moments, where the band jammed and the guitars, keyboard and drums shone.
A highlight of their performance was ‘Compulsory Hero’ and ‘You’ll Never Know’, but you could feel the crowd waiting for a certain song and after a pretend encore walk off. (“Pretend we are walking off now” to quote Eric) the crowd were treated to two more songs with the finale song being the one they were waiting for ‘If I Could’. The crowd took over the vocals and knew them word for word, sung loud and clear. 1927 left the stage with the crowd on a high.
With thanks to Nicole Hart at Revolutions Per Minute and
