Live Review: The Phoncurves, Sahara Beck

Tables and chairs are set up in small clusters close to the stage, and a slight breeze blows in the windows from Ann Street, drifting across the wooden floorboards throughout the room. For tonight’s Long Player Sessions, Sahara Beck has chosen to cover selections from Elvis Presley’s The Sun Sessions, and while her voice certainly possesses the personality to make these songs her own, her current singing style transposes onto these songs with varied results.

Covering Presley is never easy, let alone the album that’s often seen as the first rock’n’roll record ever laid to tape. The danger of falling into lacklustre imitation is an ever-present threat. However, the four-piece band opens with That’s All Right, kicking off the set to a rollicking start. Beck’s performance is a little rushed, but I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine gives her the chance to comfortably ease the song into her vocal range, coaxing a few higher notes out of the slower tune. Trying To Get To You is similarly stretched into a touching ballad.

The excitable Milkcow Blues Boogie sees a few couples get up from their seats for some swing dancing, churning the dancefloor with their rockabilly dance moves. The floor reverberates beneath our feet as the bassist’s fingers slide up and down the neck of his upright bass guitar. Beck goes solo for I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’), before the band returns to the stage for Hound Dog. The song doesn’t appear on The Sun Sessions, but you won’t find anyone here complaining as she unleashes the pent-up bitterness found in her recent music.

The Phoncurves wander onto the stage soon after. The Brisbane duo is here to cover Gwen Stefani’s unforgettable Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in its entirety, lending it some of their own angelic harmonies. At times their stripped-back approach highlights the strengths of the original songs, as the verses of Rich Girl transform into the chorus, and Bubble Pop Electric is successfully reimagined as a slow love ballad.

There really is no substitute for the indulgent production and sheer Stefani sass of some of the originals though. The attitude that carries Hollaback Girl from its start to its finish is missing, and What You Waiting For? loses all of its power, partly because of Naomi Hodge’s percussion skills, which warm up eventually.

The sparse accompaniment from a sampler and keyboard provides a simple structure for the pair’s voices to wrap themselves around. Luxurious sparkles under the prism of their crystal clear voices, and they find a sense of sincerity in songs The Real Thing and Long Way To Go. The latter closes the set, and is delivered in an a cappella as gentle as falling snow.