The Church
State Theatre, November 30
★★★★
Before closing the first half of the Church's set, frontman Steve Kilbey jokes that the coming intermission might blow them off stage. Of course, there's no chance of that when the seminal Sydney psychedelic merchants have just played an album as entrancing as 1988's Starfish from start to finish. Thirty years hasn't diminished the power of these songs and tonight the band plays them with verve and clarity, helped by a superbly balanced mix.
Age has not wearied Steven Kilbey, frontman of psychedelic Sydney rock act the Church.Credit:Jeffrey Chan
Age has not wearied 64-year-old Kilbey and his baritone never strays far from its comfort zone as his fingers flutter over his bass.
The guitars of Peter Koppes and Powderfinger's Ian Haug (ably filling in for Marty Willson-Piper) weave a spell through Blood Money and North, South East and West, although the usually superb Reptile lacks venom in its snarling chorus.
Guitarist Peter Koppes from the Church.Credit:Jeffrey Chan
An inherent flaw of the "classic album" concert trope is revealed when Under the Milky Way rears its anthemic, stardusted self second song in, and the Starfish set finishes on the cosy yet anticlimactic comedown of Hotel Womb. Play your classic album in its entirety, by all means, but feel free to tweak the tracklisting to suit the live setting.
With the comfy cardigan-cum-straitjacket of their most popular album lifted from their shoulders, the Church are free to roam a near-40-year back catalogue and they do so with a second set of songs old (1982's Almost With You) and new (last year's Another Century).
Rounding out the second set, Tantalized is a tour de force of tension and release, all skittering guitar chops that build up, break down, get lost, then finally culminate in that narcotic bliss bomb of a verse, "God, I've been asleep so long, I've been away". It's timeless, spine-tingling stuff.
The Unguarded Moment is an attempt to take things even higher in the encore, a well-chewed bone thrown to an appreciative crowd who want to relive their paisley-patterned youth with a slice of early '80s jangle pop.
Things come full circle when a pulsating guitar chord recalls the start of Starfish opener Destination, before morphing into the spellbinding Miami from 2014's Further Deeper. Through a shimmering tapestry of guitar delay and feedback, drummer Tim Powles leads the congregation in a spontaneous handclap outro that proves, as if there were any doubt, this Church continues to grow.
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