Bachelor Girl and Boom Crash Opera
Seagulls Club, Tweed Heads. 16th September 2023
Geez I’ve missed this place. It’s been at least 20 years since I rocked up to Seagulls. Life gets in the way. Revisiting the site of great memories can be risky business. Good times, crazy youth, great friends – it’s a cunning brew whose recipe can’t be easily duplicated.
Bit like music, the outer shapes the inner. Remember a song you really like, often it’s the environment you heard it in, the company you shared it with, that creates the unerasable memory.
Although I’d forgotten how huge Seagulls is, I hadn’t forgotten the friendliness and the food. This was a happy start to an amazing gig, but I had no idea how good this was going to get. None at all.
We carefully observed a few things happening during the Covid thing. Serious musos didn’t sit and whine as if they were privileged – they took any gig, anywhere. Mastered their craft in the hope of a better future, so they ended up being better off by almost two years.
My Researcher and I get to play a swag of music on the radio. Though some tracks mentally wear out. So as Live acts are flooding the venues, we are all the winners. We get to hear those radio friendly tracks performed full blast, face on. Its revival time folks!
Two of Australia’s iconic groups appeared at Seagulls performing their – what became super apparent – well-loved songs, almost personal anthems to the crowd. ARIA Award winning “Bachelor Girl” with the soaring vocals of Tania Doko and James Roche as musician, producer and arranger. in the first half of the show and ARIA Award Nominees “Boom Crash Opera” with Dale Ryder returning as front man in the second half.
Both groups extended and remixed their hits – nothing can prepare you to feel so good about (a) being there live and (b) to be able to sing with almost every song. Stuff that’s stood the test of time. Tracks like “Buses And Trains”, “Permission to Shine”, “I’m Just a Girl” and stunning versions of Midnight Oils’ “Power and the Passion” and The Motels “Total Control”.
And as they say on TV, wait there’s more. Boom Crash Opera delivered on a platter, the dishing up of their hits. For example, you’d remember these: “The Best Thing”, “Get Out of the House” and the chant worthy “Onion Skin”.
And of course, meeting them if you wanted to. The accessibility to these Stars just went another 110% in my books. For sure, this is “The Best Thing”.
Reviewed by 101FM Radio Presenter Stu Robertson
Photography by Michelle Cop (MC Photography)
Keep up to date with the bands at:
Bachelor Girl www.bachelorgirl.com
Boom Crash Opera www.boomcrashopera.com
