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InterviewsTour Interview
May 9, 2022
STM

Interview with Davey Lane (You Am I)

Soon after ADELAIDE GUITAR FESTIVAL announced their 2022 program, Rohan sat down with DAVEY LANE of YOU AM I to talk TAP!!!!

Interview with Davey Lane (You Am I)

In its second annual year, Adelaide Guitar Festival proudly announces the program of world-class finger plucking favourites of rock, classical, blues, flamenco, country, and much more, from July 9 to 24, presented by Adelaide Festival Centre and visiting ten South Australian towns with the return of the On The Road regional touring program.

In a world premiere and festival exclusive, sharing center stage are Spinal Tap’s cult bass player, Derek Smalls (otherwise known as Harry Shearer), and Australian rock legends, You Am I, who will perform their tribute show Majesty of Tap after turning it up to eleven with Smalls for one night only at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Extra keen enthusiasts will be able to catch a special screening of This is Spinal Tap and Q&A in July at Mercury Cinema.

Another world premiere and exclusive to Adelaide is El Corazón del Flamenco, featuring a double bill of Spanish flamenco star José María Gallardo del Rey and Victoria-based group Arte Kanela in one exhilarating, spirited evening of music and dance.

José will also perform the Australian premiere of his new classical composition Altamira in the double bill Origination, joined by a string quartet, and the world premiere of a quintet by renowned Australian composer Gerard Brophy. Rounding out the performance, Australian voice/guitar duo Quin Thomson and David Malone will present a program of beloved favourites and premiere new works by Quin and by classical composer (and Associate Professor at Tasmania’s Conservatorium of Music) Maria Grenfell.

Adelaide Guitar Festival Artistic Director Slava Grigoryan: “The world’s most popular instrument will continue to shine in all genres in 2022, in both ticketed performances of all sizes and free and interactive opportunities. Whether you want to dance, learn, play, or simply sit, listen and enjoy, we have you covered this winter and hope you can join us at Adelaide Festival Centre and throughout regional South Australia.

”Many of our 2021 On the Road attendees commented how much they had missed and enjoyed the unique, intimate experience of live performance, which is something we all appreciate more than ever before. We were very fortunate to be able to hold events in so many regions in addition to the Adelaide performances, and this year we will get to expand on this further, plus welcome back international performers alongside some of our city and country’s best to present a fabulous program.”

This year, attendees will also be able to play the world’s largest acoustic guitar! The newly opened Festival Plaza will be home to The Immersive Guitar, which offers the free opportunity for participants to step in and get strumming on overhead strings. The project is a joint creation between performers Karin Schaupp and Vanessa Tomlinson, luthier Jim Redgate, architect Bruce Wolfe, and structural engineer Hassan Karampour, and during the festival, Karin and Vanessa will create and perform a newly commissioned work.

Commemorating the incredible milestone of 50 studio albums is Joe Camilleri, whose Black Sorrows need no introduction, but would not exist without him at the helm. Joe and the band will be joined by special guest Lecia Louise and her bluesy, rockin’ 60s and 70s-inspired tunes.

A celebration of the clear, precise beauty of classical music is triple bill Sketches and Orchestrations featuring China’s Xuefei Yang (China’s first internationally-recognized guitarist on the world stage), and sets by both the Adelaide Guitar Festival Orchestra (the festival’s Guitar Winter School Classical stream) and the Brisbane-based Riverside Guitar Ensemble.

Shred heads can rejoice when local guitarist/composer/80s enthusiast Cam Blokland with a stellar local band playing the best of Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, and more, followed by lead guitarist Simon Hosford and rock band Fair Warning who will channel the spirit of Eddie Van Halen in Foundations of Shred.

Songs Told of a Land of Gold brings to life the musical sounds of our beautiful country, via the charming sounds of country music. ARIA award winner and eight-time Golden Guitar winner Fanny Lumsden takes a break from sharing the stage with Paul Kelly, whilst self-proclaimed country vagabond Jimmybay will park his Kombi van, for one special night to each share tales from the road and weave together stories and songs.

Another world premiere, Spectrums of Sound, set the stage for two highly respected and prolific artistic duos to delve into new genre-bending works and sonic grooves. Out of Sinc is a collaboration between one of Australia’s most in-demand bass players, Nick Sinclair, and Adelaide-born ARIA award-winning jazz guitarist James Muller. Fellow duo Isola (guitarist/composer Cameron Deyell and percussion/producer Laurence Pike) share a 20-year history as friends and co-collaborators and will be joined on stage by their friend and multi-instrumentalist composer Jasper Leak, internationally known for his collaborations with Sia, Tegan and Sarah, and Quincy Jones.

Three previous Adelaide International Classical Guitar Competition winners – Pavel Ralev (2021), Pietro Locatto (2020) and Andrew Blanch (2019) – will present a monumental afternoon of inspiring solo recitals, sure to further cement their apt deserving of the title. The 2022 competition will be held on the final day of the festival to appoint this year’s winner.

Festival stalwart, Adelaide Guitar Festival Winter School, will hold a week-long guitar intensive with some of Australia’s finest guitarists in a small, immersive environment. Participants can choose from two streams: Blues and Roots (July 11 – 15) and Orchestra (July 18 – 22), open to all ages and with subsidies available.

Recorded in 2020 and with over 200,000 views, resonating with audiences everywhere were The Backstage Sessions, featuring some of South Australia’s most talented and emerging musicians performing in the intimate concert setting of the Festival Theatre stage. Six newly recorded sessions will be released throughout May and June to join the currently re-released 2020 recordings, ensuring plenty of online opportunities for those preferring to watch from home.

Free events include Paul Nash and the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria with a tribute to legendary Grammy-Award winning musician, Julian Bream; Yamaha Guitars’ Come and Try sessions where anyone can unleash their inner Tommy Emmanuel or Chick Corea via hands-on experience with the latest models; new handmade treasures from some of Australia’s finest luthiers at the Guitar Expo; and a historical exhibition of Yamaha guitars stretching from 1966 to the present day at A Tradition of Innovation.

After huge success in 2021, in 2022 Adelaide Guitar Festival On the Road returns, with additional regional towns added and program details released in May. An incredible lineup of local musicians will present free evening community hall concerts at new towns Elliston and Streaky Bay on July 8, and at Crystal Brook and Watervale on July 15. Also new in 2022 are Wallaroo (July 17) and Gumeracha (July 24) where residents will enjoy full-day micro-festivals, along with revisiting Tumby Bay (July 9), Cleve (July 10), Edithburgh (July 16), and a special one-day event in Eleanor Downs on Kangaroo Island (July 17).

Also returning in 2022 are Adelaide Festival Centre’s CentrED program, arranging artist visits to selected schools on Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas, and the ever-popular Resonance program which will entertain residents in 11 regional and metropolitan aged care facilities.

In 2022 Adelaide Guitar Festival is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, Festivals Australia program, and RISE funding body.

Adelaide Festival Centre CEO & Artistic Director Douglas Gautier AM: “In our second annual year of Adelaide Guitar Festival, and with the newly opened Festival Plaza precinct, we’re relishing the opportunity to welcome back audiences to our venues this winter. It’s a privilege to support our local artists and teachers and the next generation of performers via our Winter School and we look forward to showcasing some of our best South Australian talents at the free regional events, which proved very popular last year.” Minister for Arts, The Hon Andrea Michaels MP: “It is wonderful to see our iconic festivals getting back in full swing, reinvigorating our state and enriching our lives the way that only live performance can. I heartily congratulate Slava and the Adelaide Festival Centre team on another exciting program and encourage everyone to get out and about this winter to enjoy the Adelaide Guitar Festival.”

Tickets are on sale now online and via Ticketek.

ADLGuitarFest

Facebook: adelaideguitarfestival

Instagram: @adlguitarfest

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Gig ReviewsReviews
May 9, 2022
Tammy Walters

[Review] Our First Kiss Festival@ Melbourne Pavillion, Melbourne 7/05/2022

As soon as Our First Kiss festival was announced, as bought to us by the incredible team at Destroy All Lines, the needle in my memory record player became permanently stuck on the monster 3Oh!3 track featuring Kesha, leading to a high school time capsule bursting open. 

Reels of moments in time flooded my temporal lobe from spending way too much time becoming an HTML master coder to create the ultimate MySpace profile (full of mirror snaps with puffy hair and smudged thick black eyeliner, ‘raaawr <3’ captions and the best scene bands as your top friends), religiously attending battle of the bands to discover the next big scene gods, and naturally spending all of my spare cash at Dangerfield on band tees, studded belts and Emily the Strange merch. Ahh the good old days…

Like the generations before us – the rockabillies, the hippies, the punks, the grunge gurus – we all still hold onto that defining period of our formative years, and Our First Kiss was an indicator of that knock-white grasp.

Watching the sea of former scene kids swarm upon Melbourne Pavilion this cold May evening offered two thoughts – one of pure youthful excitement for the stacked lineup and one of comfort in the fact that I was home with my people. We’re all still donning the band tees, the black skinny leg jeans, the tartan, the skater skirts, the fishnet stockings, and a variation of vans, converse, and Dr. Martens. The mega side bangs have evolved but the unconventionally coloured hair and piercings a-plenty remain. The wings on our eyeliner have been tamed but the sentiment is strong – we are emo kids, hear us RAWR.

And we did… to the bands that helped shape, and are continuing to shape, our pop-punk and Emo scene in Australia.

Typically a venue for glamorous weddings and functions, Melbourne Pavilion is a stunning setting thanks to the Sia-worthy swinging chandeliers and dome ceiling. The dance floor which has seen many emotional first dances swept across it was filled with feet ready to jump. Propped up in the corner were giant mirrors marked with lipstick encouragement titled ‘Mirror of Expression’ where patrons could scrawl their own words of wisdom along with a must-have photo booth. Back in the foyer was a free hair and makeup station from the glam team at the Academy of Makeup and a merch desk. Taking a right turn to the outside area was the food truck festival with burger and Mexican menus. For a 5 PM indoor festival setting, Our First Kiss paid attention to the emo hearts’ detail.

From newer addition and revivalist local act Terra to the 2008 tiger stripes of Closure In Moscow, Dream On Dreamer, The Getaway Plan, Short Stack and The Veronicas, adding in the nostalgia noose of DJ sets from Bangs finest DJ’s, Our First Kiss musically could not disappoint.

Terra, who have been sweeping the festival slots and have just launched their latest EP Reverie, delivered a stellar opening set full of swirling hooks and larger-than-life vocals – two key ingredients to the emo music makeup and a damn fine way to start the evening.

A personal favourite, Closure In Moscow, offered a faultless set of tracks from their debut baby First Temple and prog product Pink Lemonade. Wearing a vibrant pink co-ord, Mansur Zennelli, started the wheel rolling for top-notch showmanship. With an exaggerated dramatic flare, including gun hands and nail-biting, Zennelli elevated the impeccable musicianship onstage tenfold. Also if you haven’t heard their EP The Penance and The Patience, quit wasting time and stream that album already! 

Our First Kiss got changeover slots spot on by involving Bang DJ’s Rayve Moor, Maddi Nightmare, Tropical Depression, and Rayden Joy. Between the live sets, these tune-fishers curated the most emo-filled playlists imaginable with belters tracks from Emo Gods My Chemical Romance, Paramore, A Day To Remember, Escape The Fate, Pierce The Veil, AFI, and more inducing monumental sing-alongs across the night. 

The singalongs hit full swing as The Getaway Plan took to the stage. With huge hit ‘Shadows’ opening their set, Matthew Wright and co-performed their guts out, proving range does not age. Teasing that they went overtime and breaking each and every punter’s heart before launching into one of Australia’s most recognizable emo anthems, ‘Where The City Meets The Sea’, The Getaway Plan dominated the Our First Kiss stage.

You want showmanship? You want banter? You want crowd interaction? Oh, hey there Short Stack!

There was nothing short about this show, from walking on to ‘It’s Raining Men’ to covering banger ‘All The Small Things’, these lads were on fire, accurately summing up their set with the following comment: ‘you can see their eyes and ears bleeding from the musical amazingness’.

As the disco ball spun overhead and ‘Freak’ by Australia’s best band Silverchair erupted, the stage filled with smoke. An emergency alarm sounded for an intruder alert. There was a breach in festival security – The Veronicas infiltrated Melbourne Pavilion for an adrenaline animalistic experience. Australia’s twin-pack pop-punk princesses turned pop goddesses may be small in stature but they deliver larger-than-life sets. Our First Kiss was no exception. Whilst no wall-of-death erupted this time around, the crushing weight of their talent hit like a tonne of bricks. ‘4Ever’, ‘Everything I’m Not’, ‘When It All Falls Apart’, screamo star ‘Mother Mother’, ‘Hook Me Up’, ‘This Is How It Feels’, ‘You Ruin Me’, ‘Take Me On The Floor’, ‘In My Blood’ and the national anthem ‘Untouched’; there are no words to describe a set of this proportion. The best of the old, the best of the new – simply, the best!

Our First Kiss could have been sloppy and somewhat awkward but so much thought and love went into it that it left us feeling all fuzzy inside, magical, memorable, and thinking about the next kiss.

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Album ReviewReviews
May 5, 2022
Cam Brown Visuals

Simple Plan – Harder than It Looks

Review by Cam Brown

Nearly 20 years after I first heard their debut album “No Pads, No Helmets….Just Balls”, and had it on high rotation in my multi-CD stacker, Simple Plan has returned with their 6th Studio album.

Their first independent release “Harder Than It Looks” produces that well-known Simple Plan sound, but like red wine, has matured in flavor over the years.

The album opens with a piano riff, which makes you wonder what’s in store, but it doesn’t take long before the signature driving guitars kick in, soon after Pierre Bouvier’s distinctive and instantly recognisable voice joins in, and you know you’re in the land of Simple Plan.

“Wake Me Up (When This Nightmare’s Over)” has some poignant lyrics about the world’s current situation and the band has used this to raise funds for the UNICEF Ukraine Emergency appeal and has also used a Ukrainian director and actors in the video clip to further push the emotion of this song.

“Ruin My Life” is a typical Simple Plan. Great dynamics with the song continuing to build throughout, guitar riffs, harmonized vocals, and of course in true Simple Plan, a collaboration. This time featuring Deryck Whibley from fellow Canadian Rockers Sum-41. However, to me, this feature was a little bit lacking only appearing for a verse and I felt they could have done a little more with it. He may have just been added as some additional promotion to the current blame Canada Tour across America with Sum-41. No detriment to the song as it would stand on its own with or without Deryck.

 “The Antidote” the story of young love as the music video entails, or just a song about someone people can rely on, starts some of the journeys of a modern Simple Plan. Combining their pop-punk with a little bit more of a modern rock spin. The band had this to say about this track.

 “The song is a throwback to our classic Simple Plan sound, but with a modern twist. It has all the elements our fans have come to love and expect from our band: a big, energetic chorus and honest and heartfelt lyrics that deal with life and the struggles we all face. It feels like the perfect starting point and a great preview of what’s to come on the album”

 “Million pictures of You” & “Congratulations”, the latest singles off the album continue in the sound direction of “Jetlag” with their upbeat and even happy pop-punk anthems. I would even throw “Slow-Motion” the second last track on the album into this category.

“Anxiety” is where the album changes and produces a track that could be by many other modern pop artists. The lyrics are true to form providing something, as Simple Plan lyrics often do, that many fans could relate to and the reason why many of us started and continued to listen to Simple Plan across the last two decades.

Providing riffs that could be used across many action/sports tv shows not forgetting to mention recaps of the season, “Iconic” provides another modern take on the Simple Plan sound. Brass grooves combined with the marching band feel provide an Anthem that drives you on just to prove people wrong and become an “Iconic” legend.

“Best Day Of My Life” is just a throwback to old-school Simple Plan. Energetic, fast, heavy showing they can still rock it as they used to.

The final track “Two” gives you all the feels of childhood if you grew up in a split family. If you were writing a musical just using Simple Plan songs this would pair perfectly with their Symbolic hit “Perfect”.

Overall Simple Plan continues to produce great music, keeping plenty of their original sound but further enhancing their sound and developing as an artist.

“Harder Than It Looks” doesn’t provide a single stand-out track to me that I would just continue to play on repeat, but on the other hand, it provides a fantastic album that I would be more than happy to listen to the whole thing on repeat. In fact, the more you listen to it the catchier it becomes, and you will be singing along by the second or third time.

If you have been a fan from the start, you won’t be let down.

My only disappointment in the album to me, in my opinion, is it is a couple of songs short, and I would love it to have one like the acoustic ballad “Perfectly Perfect” as they also do the acoustic style so well.

A score of 8/10 for me, but that good easily go up with a few more listens, or maybe some bonus points if they bring their tour Down Under. 









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