Live Review: The Tea Party

However good they were on record The Tea Party were always a more moving and visceral experience live. Twenty years on from their early-'90s breakout, Jeff Martin, Stuart Chatwood and drummer Jeff Burrows still know how to fill a room with poetry, passion and pure prog power. On stage, their “Moroccan roll” anthems are bigger and more enveloping and they deliver them with such swagger and aplomb that it's almost impossible not to be swept up.

Kicking off their first Australian tour in eight years, the freshly re-formed and clearly invigorated Ontario trio fill St Kilda's vintage Palais Theatre with a throng of adoring 30- and 40-somethings, the foyer beforehand resembling a '90s T-shirt convention. It is clear from that we won't be moshing tonight.

Given a grand and ornate stage on which to strut their back catalogue, The Tea Party proceed to belt out the crowd's faves with such energy and unabashed sensuality that the evening morphs from big-sound rock show to theatrical nostalgia fest. Up front, Martin exudes a blend of self-deprecating charm and shameless showmanship that serves to elevate the evening to something more satisfying than a classic hits cash-in and signals the return of a newly-united force. Powered along by Chatwood's often Anglophile bass lines and Burrows' magnificent Bonhamesque 'hitting', the band proceed to give the fans exactly what they want; namely, tracks from Splendor Solis and Edges Of Twilight. Gems such as Fire In The Head, Sister Awake and Save Me all elicit the joy of recognition and its attendant flood of recollection. Best of all, the band play them with undiluted commitment and obviously consummate technique. If there's any rust on this beast you sure as hell can't tell (slightly irritating PA noise notwithstanding).

As ever, The Tea Party litter their sound with sometimes oblique references, most notably to Middle-Eastern tunings and to Joy Division's Atrocity Exhibition. However, the surprising cover of Dead Can Dance's Rakim and the smooth glide into fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen's much loved Hallelujah offer further proof of the band's sonic and technical dexterity.

What is apparent from the floor is just how much inside these songs they are, how much they embody them. Missing is the noisy fury of young men, but in its place the assured and refined energy of grown men freed from the need to impress. Then again, the faithful were never going to be anything less than blown away.