Ed Kuepper slips from international stages as Nick Cave’s hired gun into the more serene (machine?!) confines of a seated Thursday solo show. The Flying Saucer Club conjures images of Sixties dives filled with smoke, noise and more multi-coloured tablets than a pharmacy. Beam me up Scotty. In actual fact nothing could be further from the truth. This is the Caufield RSL, a regal Tudor style building turned into an occasional live venue, a playground for the young at heart to listen to music with all the urgency but no danger from risible interruptions.
Ed takes the stage with the bare essentials of a couple of guitars, some amplification and a golden repertoire to treat a comfortably full audience with three hours of his life’s work. Every aspect of his career if represented. Brisbane (Security City) to Eternally Yours to Rue The Day, Fireman Joe and Electrical Storm. Like any Ed Kuepper performance, the show was littered with the favourites you expect to hear. What show would be complete without Collapse Board, The Way l Made You Feel or Horse Underwater.
But this was no ordinary show. It was one for the fans, to receive their requests and to see whether the songs could be remembered. That is why there was the brilliantly titular Also Sprach King Of Euro Disco, Ill Wind, Kissin’ Cousins, Indian Reservation amongst plenty of others. But who would have expected to hear the Fifties gem by the aptly named The Diamonds, Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein Or Dracula and Runaway or Always The Woman Pays? Unexpected treats that could have been completed with someone screaming “Bingo!!!” at every given opportunity.
As with any requests show, many were played, some were not, other were stored in the memory bank but evaporated by the end of the night assisted by several glasses of Top Shelf. Hello Alco Pops, but not in the context of a Pink audience down the road. By the time Ed gave in to the barrage of pleas and ended with Sundown, everyone was duly satiated by a special performance.
BY BRONIUS ZUMERIS
Loved: The couch.
Hated: An entire generation missing out on something that will endure.
Drank: Apple juice to some, cider to others.
