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The Go Betweens
That Striped Sunlight Sound
Tuition DVD + CD
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Article
written by Ged M
Feb 6, 2006.
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“We’re the last people to shoot a DVD” says Robert Forster to the crowd in the Tivoli, Brisbane on 6 August last year. Apart from a video collection of six singles released in 1990, the Go Betweens aren’t much of a multi-media band. Though they were into “art and pop”, as Robert recalls on the DVD, it wasn’t in a Franz Ferdinand sense; Grant McLennan is closer to the truth when he remarks “we were unmarketable”. That disconnect from the prevailing pop trends, the fact that they were unfashionable, uncompromising and wilful, is what made us love them all the more (their fanbase might have been small but the band was massively influential: I give you Belle and Sebastian, Grandaddy and 95% of the Swedish indie sound as proof).
The Go Betweens separated in 1989 and Robert and Grant reformed the band in 2000. In the wake of the critical success of their ninth album ‘Oceans Apart’, they recorded their first gig for DVD. I don’t usually enjoy concert videos but there’s something unusual about this DVD; maybe it’s the youthful crowd of Queenslanders at a home town gig; perhaps it’s the difference between the ungainly, formal and slightly camp presence of the tree-tall Forster and the softness of the small McLennan that represents the tension that there’s always been in the Go Betweens between intellectualism and romanticism. Or maybe it’s just the songs; plenty from the post-reformation albums, of course but a few of the classic 80s sound: when you hear ‘Spring Rain’ and ‘Streets of Your Town’, you’ll wonder how they eluded chart success (though Amanda Brown and Robert Vickers apart, they were never exactly an MTV-glamorous band). Watching them live, you suddenly grasp the significance of Forster’s eyebrows in conveying emotion in a song; no-one since Roger Moore has had so much power in one hairy caterpillar of a brow.
The real reason for acquiring this DVD (apart from the excellent idea to include an audio CD of the gig as well) is the home-set acoustic session. Like one of those MTV storyteller sessions, and shot the day after the gig, Grant and Robert play 11 tracks that represent the band’s history, interspersing the music with commentary. What comes across is the humour: ‘Lee Remick’ is a laugh-riot and the description of ‘Head Full of Steam’ as “Prince meets Val Doonican” is worth the price of admission alone. It also confirms that ‘Cattle and Cane’ is a classic of its era and suggests that ‘Here Comes A City’ is going that way. Seeing the fierce Brisbane sunshine pouring into the house during the recording, it’s easy to understand the title of the CD, which refers to the original description of the Brisbane-penned early songs. The one let-down is the lack of recognition of other band members, especially Lindy Morrison.
It’s forever galling to think that they’ll always be a cult band, despite producing some of the finest music over the last couple of decades; when U2 CDs are being ground up for motorway ballast (please God, make it soon), the Go Betweens will still be there as examples of elegant, erudite, classic pop music and this DVD suggests that will be the case for some time yet.
Untitled Document
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