Live Review: Robert Forster, Halfway

With punters spilling out onto the bowling greens, one gets an old-school revival tent feel approaching the Enoggera Bowls Club for tonight’s installment of the G20 Cultural Celebrations. It’s hard to imagine a more sublimely suburban setting for such a quintessentially Brisbane outing.

Halfway are first to front the club hall’s angular brick backdrop with the loping banjo of Hard Life Loving You.Tonight’s testament to what an impressive setlist Halfway have built up through the years as they rip through Dulcify, 110, Shakespeare Hotel, Oscar, Honey I Like It and Drop Out. But far from resting on their laurels there seems an experimental spirit about tonight’s set with some more elaborate outros on show as well as new number Bloodlines whose squally wall of noise sees the band flexing newer more off-kilter muscles with great effect. They still do slow and poignant beautifully though, the early set waltz-at-a-wake fragility of Sunlight On The Sills sitting next to swoony finisher Sweetheart Please Don’t Stop as firm highlights.

“I’m not sure what’s more unlikely, Brisbane hosting the G20 or me performing at the Enoggera Bowls Club.”

Robert Forster seems equal parts amused and chuffed to be here tonight, stating: “I’m not sure what’s more unlikely, Brisbane hosting the G20 or me performing at the Enoggera Bowls Club.” He opens up with Rock’N’Roll Friend after which an always affecting Born To A Family’s tale of an arty kid growing up in a family of workers points poignantly to the irony of the setting. The savagely melodic Pandanus from The Evangelist leads into slow swinger Darlinghurst Nights as Forster revels in proceedings with an almost aggressively quirky stage persona. It would be a tad ironic to be witnessing an incendiary performance at a bowls club but it has that feel to it as Forster makes hilarious mouth wave noises leading into Surfing Magazines and complements Heart Out To Tender with vogueing hand gestures. A stunning He Lives My Life and bristling Here Comes The City amongst other classics sees the solo portion of his set come to an ecstatically received end. 

Forster now welcomes Halfway to the stage, guitar banished and reeking of frontman swagger. He shares vocals on Halfway’s own Patience Back, it’s conspicuous absence from the latter’s set well and truly made up for. The octet, which includes former Go-Betweens guitarist John Willsteed, seems such a natural fit and a triumphant Spring Rain gets the crowd elatedly busting shapes either sides of the parquet floor’s gaffer-taped cords. Esteemed Junk Bar proprietor Mia Goodwin then contributes vocals to legendary closer Streets Of Your Town and a seminal evening draws to a close.

You know that bit in Ghostbusters where a marshmallow-covered Ernie Hudson raises arms and shouts “I love this town!”? Tonight feels like that.