With this Wednesday night show coming just days after Canadian expat, now Perth resident, Jeff Martin had played to a packed Gershwin Room show at The Espy, the mood at The Workers Club was a bit flat.
Support act, Melbourne local Tash Sultana began her set to only 12 people but through her rich voice, superior guitar picking and psychedelic vocal sampling, the room was half full by the time her set finished.
However, the atmosphere wasn’t quite there. That is, until Jeff Martin came to the stage. The Tea Party frontman has been a professional musician since The Tea Party released their Eastern influenced major label debut, 1993’s Splendour Solis, so as Martin got stuck into the chords of his opening track, the audience was captured by the sheer ability of his playing. However there was another layer of excitement being communicated from the stage. On his first major break between songs Martin revealed why: “On Monday, I had my first real day off from this tour and a lot of that day was spent on the phone to two guys in Canada that I started a band with a little while ago. You know, this year it has been 25 years since The Tea Party released Edges Of Twilight? Now, I know I can trust you guys not to tell anyone so I will let you know that next year, The Tea Party will be doing shows here with your symphony orchestra.”
This very qualified cherry dangle by Martin lifted the mood of the audience exponentially, because for most of the people in attendance, during the ‘90s The Tea Party were a super cool and important band. To put in context for 2015, imagine The Tea Party as Canada’s Tame Impala back in the 1990s.
Martin’s set was full of medleys where he combined his own songs with cover versions of rock’n’roll classics, from Led Zeppelin and Hendrix as well as Daniel Lanois Still Water – a song has been included in his solo sets for the last couple of tours.
Martin’s mash-up of The Tea Party’s Requiem from Interzone Mantras (2001) with Nine Inch Nails Hurt was stirring, but when he rocked into The Tea Party’s instrumental Winter Solstice that meshed fluidly into Save Me Martin achieved something truly transcendental considering the stage set up was just him, a 12 string Maton, a microphone and an incense box.
Martin’s final stanza included The Tea Party’s A Certain Slant Of Light and Coming Home, plus Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven andmaybe a little bit of Doors’ The End. But just before he broke into that he confessed that he loved playing these small club shows, despite the fact the demand for The Tea Party to do shows meant they could “name your own price”.
BY DAN WATT
Loved: The announcement The Tea Party are doing shows next year.
Hated: The person filming on their Galaxy with a super bright light.
Drank: Coke.
