Baxter DuryWhen the backing track of a distant dancefloor starts up, there is a welcoming world that draws you in. Visions of seedy nightclubs that seem a fargone phenomenon flicker through the mind. And then comes the drum beat - hard and sudden on the ears. The synth and the bass pipe up.
Madelaine Hart’s cool vocals draw us into a tale of woe in media res: “It's just another minor speeding offence, but it's not your fault. Please don't apologise, this was how you were born.”
This is when the man himself - Baxter Dury, 55-years-young, forever in the shadow of his rockstar father - enters to cheers from the crowd in the cavernous Roundhouse amidst storms out of nowhere.
He staggers about the stage with wild, sad eyes before genuflecting to the crowd, waggling his fingers towards us, splaying his arms apart and looking skyward like a wayward cherub. Contrary to the smooth deadpan of the studio version, Dury’s delivery on Alpha Dog is tossed into the crowd with an energised squawk.
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He’s here in double trust - touring the new album, Allbarone, his eighth out on Heavenly Recordings, and expelling demons. The sad clown cavorts for the crowd - how much of him is character? How much of him is real? Does it even really matter?
For now, the driving darkness of Hapsburg hits us with Hart’s vocals modulated to sound like a Gregorian chant emerging from a dirty synth sound. Dury’s lyrics delve into a world of shameless excess; part alluring, part repulsive. The duality doesn’t end there, with the spoken word revealing moments of dire darkness and expansive wit.
Still, the stage antics persist, perhaps detracting from the delivery of the song, yet creating a unique experience for the audience who witness this rogue run and pant in a perpetual boomerang of a striptease. He plays with the light as his backing band sits at the back of the stage in the shadows.
The infectious and grinding I’m Not Your Dog returns with the same jarring delivery, designed to drag the Wednesday revellers out of their mid-week slump. “I’m not your fucking friend, but I’d like to be.” That opening line seems to typify Dury’s energy - a standoffishness belying a need to be liked, to be admired. He waggles his fingers upwards and outwards, craving the ovation.
What we admire about Dury is in the imagery of his storytelling filtered through the groove of the synth-bass-drums synergy. It’s a simple formula, yet difficult to do effortlessly. The cool and calm of the studio is supplanted for something more scattershot.
Tracks like Almond Milk have just that simple magic, with that partial critique, partial obsessional yearning with verses that reveal a sordid character tinged with disdain, yet the chorus shows an inability to sever the orbit of this individual: “I can’t leave it alone.”
As the show nears its end, the atmosphere thickens with anticipation. Dury moves from psychoanalytical spurts of word association to a relinquishing to the sound. The synths of “Miami” pulse like a heartbeat, underscoring lyrics drenched in arrogance and dirty grace as he embodies that mad city.
As the last notes of Miami linger, Dury appears like the embodiment of a man caught between euphoria and melancholy. He plunges into Allbarone, the title track from his latest album, where the soundscape morphs into something lush yet unsettling. His voice dances over the pulsating rhythm as he recounts a night yearned for but perhaps best forgotten.
Finally, Schadenfreude erupts, a frenetic celebration of life’s little pleasures and pains. The crowd moves as one, caught in the infectious energy of the beat, Dury’s voice slicing through the chaos with sharp, playful lines. “You were off with that doughnut laughing behind my back.” There’s something about the way he says the titular word that’s sensual. The build-up, the anticipation. The German term has never sounded sadder and sexier!
Earlier opening band, Sydney’s Silky Roads, made an attempt to emulate Parcels and/or Mildlife but lacked the heart and hooks to draw us in like those recent icons of the Australian music scene have.
