The BasicsThree years on and now, thankfully, The Basics are back. The break had something to do with the band's drummer and vocalist Wally De Backer going off to do a solo project (Gotye – you may have heard it), but the other parts of the trio, Kris Schroeder (vox/bass) and Tim Heath (vox/guitar) have also clearly been beavering away at their craft, writing new tunes and generally keeping their chops up.
Tonight's gig was ably warmed by The Familiars and Hoy, although the genre gap between them perhaps divided the room a little (the former indie rockers with lashings of irony, including a fabulous cover of Hungry Like The Wolf; while the latter was slow burn, a bit more folkie and earnest).
When The Basics took the stage they began with a newbie, a pop-styled protest song gently proclaiming We Don't Know How Lucky We Are. Citizens of one of the safest and strongest places in the world, indeed. While the band did cover lots of musical ground, the soapbox wasn't too prominent later. Spanning much of their decade-plus career, tonight upbeater So Hard For You stood strongly next to the gorgeous harmony-driven Hey Rain, while covers in between also got a go. Particular props for “a song by the Davies boys”, known to the rest of us as All Day And All Of The Night by The Kinks, and The Sonics' Shot Down. The gig was peppered, as Basics shows often are, with sweet back and forth and gentle teasing between the boys (although they did seem a little thrown by the apparently 'polite' response we were giving the set – perhaps other places don't just hang back and listen). Maybe it was just because given De Backer's recent success it's been easy to forget how brilliant the others are (Schroeder's Nick Cave-like growl was especially striking). For encore Schroeder came out first for a solo effort, claiming to find the whole thing 'a bit Bryan Adams', but plugging on to present a gorgeous slowburner acoustic, All Or Nothing, then an all in as the others came to the stage. To end was another cover, although just shamelessly an excuse to rock out with surfie classic, Wipeout.
