Live Review: Guy Pearce, Darren Middleton

Did you know the Portuguese were responsible for introducing Christianity to Japan in the 14th century, while at the same time supplying them with vast amounts of heinous weaponry? Well you might've learned that if you moseyed through the exhibition on display before seeing Guy Pearce and ex-Powderfinger guitarist Darren Middleton play at ARTBAR inside the WA Art Gallery on Thursday night. After perusing the artefacts on display, smartly-dressed history enthusiasts, spouting many a "hmm yes, the detail on this one..." packed the spaces around the stage, joining avid punters and Guy Pearce fanatics.

Meekly taking a seat behind a keyboard to the side of stage, Pearce made a rather unassuming entry and opened the show with a slow ballad. Middleton joined shortly thereafter, as did the impressively multi-talented backing band, The Octobers (they were all born in July). Pearce's bristly vocal register, funnily enough, bears many similarities to Bernard Fanning, no doubt a key factor in what appears to be a very symbiotic relationship between him and Middleton, who himself sings with a more restrained but nonetheless beautiful voice.

Pearce was mostly left to the stage banter, remarking, "I don't know what Darren's record is about... I do, really, but I'm here to talk about mine," and drawing big laughs from the crowd. Overflow, the opening track from last year's debut Broken Bones brought out the impressive richness of his voice which was met with thunderous applause. Conversely, Middleton's songs seemed to embody heartier electric single-note riffs a la Thrilloilogy — that familiar Powderfinger sound that Australia fell so deeply in love with still very obviously coursing through him.

Perhaps unaware that the exhibition had closed for the evening, this crowd talked, and talked, and talked. Their banal conversations were clearly more important than the musicians on stage who, unbeknownst to them, were not there to provide incidental music to their incessant ramblings. Artists from Paul Dempsey to James Blake have suffered similarly so Perth, how about shutting up?

Unfazed by the rudeness, the band dished up Storms, a mournful lament by Middleton that built into a bruising rocker toward the end, with backing vocalist Talei Wolfram channelling Christina Aguilera as she wailed the song to a stunning close. Although the set was rounded out with Pearce's mediocre Taste, he'd already more than proved his ability as an accomplished musician, another great notch on the belt alongside singing Follie! as a drag queen, on the roof of a bus.