British legends The Animals lit up the Astor with their career highlighting blues-rock hits and classic rock sound that has earned them fame since the 1960s. This current lineup playing The Farewell Tour, The Final Encore includes Danny Handler on guitar and vocals, Normal Helm slapping the bass, Barney ‘Boogie’ Williams fingering the ivory keys and original founding member, drummer John Steel. This was a show for the ages!
Singer Danny took to the microphone and said ‘Good evening everybody, how are we doing? It is nice to be here’ which caused the almost sold out crowd to cheer so loud it would have lifted the roof of the Astor off. It was fitting that this iconic band was playing such an iconic venue. ‘Its nice to be back in Perth, its been a few years!’ Danny shouted out to the crowd, chatting and introducing the band to the audience. Danny continued, explaining how the band played in Mandurah the night before and so dedicated this next track to Mandurah.
The Animals played the Jimmy Reed cover, Bright Lights, Big City, and gave it their own honky tonk blues touch with a wicked keys solo from Boogie Barney. Other covers include Sam Cooke’s 1963 hit Bring It Home To Me, which Handley handled beautifully in his soulful crooning voice. It was a feast for the ears and a delight for the eyes.
Proving that their music has aged like a fine wine, matured like a delicious sharp cheddar cheese, and refined greater than sugar, The Animals played all their classic hits including Don’t Bring Me Down, We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place, Boom Boom, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood and The House Of The Rising Sun. They played through all their hits, from the fast paced rock numbers, through to the slow methodical blues tracks through to sleazy lounge blues numbers.
Every note was hit with perfect timing and precision, with drummer Jon Steel keeping the band on track, and each song was interspersed with sharp guitar solos with clean beautiful tone, or beefy bass notes or a wicked keys solo soaring above the vocals. It all came together like a delightful and delicious meal for the ears.
The crowd ate up every bite and were hungry for more as the band tickled their musical funny bone, creating clap alongs, sing alongs, and many people dancing in their seats. The crowd were spirited, everyone in a lively mood and happy to be enjoying The Animals again. Handley dotted the set with anecdotes throughout, about having to leave an ill band member behind in Tasmania so they could make their check in at the next venue on the tour (he was okay and met up with them later on). Other anecdotes included tales of the tour, how they started in Europe and then went home for 45 minutes, then to Germany, France and even Ibiza, and then home for 25 minutes to pat the kids on the head. Then back for another 8 weeks and 34 shows later, then home again. Then back to Australia again, a country which they say they absolutely love, along with everything in it. Another anecdote shared was about a beach festival The Animals played where there were thousands of girls in bikinis who started to boogie when Barney fingered the ivory keys, and they called it the Barney Boogie. Almost on cue Barney played the Barney Boogie which was definitely a boogie vibe, similar to what you might hear from The Beachboys over the years.
You can tell the band are all father figures, because the Dad jokes were on point. Talking about having CDs, Handley said ‘we have got some CDs for sale but they are all blank, I realise nobody has a CD player anymore, so it was cheaper that way.’ These terribly fantastic jokes were throughout the whole set and caused the whole crowd to crack up with laughter. But the absolute highlight was when Handley invited John Steel to the microphone to introduce the last song. Steel talked about how when the band first started in 1963, they released a single which got in the charts, and then they got picked up by an agent who brought Chuck Berry over to the UK for a tour and they were going to be a part of it.
Then they thought they should be doing something different because everybody on the tour was going to be the same sort of music, so they thought they would do that. They wrote a song and realised the audience reaction to it was something special so they organised a recording studio and there was some travelling from Liverpool for a 2am arrival to get the studio set up and recorded. They played it through in its entirety on a single track recording, not even on a double track, and the audio engineer said ‘that’s a hit record’. Steel says the band thought that was cool but its probably a bit long at over 4 minutes and won’t ever get played by the BBC who had a 2 minute max rule. Mickey said ‘to hell with it, we’re in the vinyl age now’ but he was right about the BBC not wanting to touch it.
But The Animals got a spot on Ready Steady Go on the BBC on the TV and they played it live and it took off and it was in the top 20 charts so the BBC had to play it anyway. It has become an all time classic, that every generation remembers. And with that, The Animals played House Of The Rising Sun to close out their set which had everyone on their seats clapping their hands, seeing The Animals make history once again.
With thanks to John Howarth and Hardline Media for the access.
Photos by Shotweiler Photography.
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