Llewellyn
Hall, Canberra, 5th August. 2023.
Reviewed by
BILL STEPHENS.
For their
penultimate concert in an 11 city national tour, the Spooky Men Chorale packed
Canberra’s Llewellyn Hall with an audience made up primarily of glued-on fans,
but also a good many Spooky Men Chorale virgins, like this reviewer, curious to
see what all the fuss is about.
Formed in
the Blue Mountains of NSW in 2001 by Christchurch born spookmeister, Stephen
Taberner, the Spooky Men began attracting attention with their quirky
combination of Georgian table songs, lush harmonies, highly inappropriate
covers, and man anthems like “Don’t stand between a man and his tool”.
Canberra
audiences discovered them when they appeared at the National Folk Festival in
2004, leading to their appearance at the Woodford Festival and the first of six
tours of the UK in 2006. Since then the group have become fixtures at major
festivals around Australia, as well as in the UK and Europe.
Not content
with conquering festivals, the Spooky Men’s Chorale has recorded seven CD’s to
date, made appearances on ABC TV, and built a large following intrigued by their
premise of man as a vast, oblivious, useless object.
Presenting
as a bedraggled group costumed in a collection of deliberately daggy black
garments and mismatched hats; the fourteen-member ensemble took the stage and
announced themselves cheekily with their theme-song, “We Are The Men”, which they
clarified with their next song, “We Are Not A Men’s Group”.
Thereafter, their
leader and conductor, Stephen Taberner, amused and bemused with a droll running
commentary on the group’s philosophy while keeping a tight rein on their
impressive harmonies and articulation.
Sprinkling
gorgeous acapella vocal arrangements of popular songs like Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”
and Allee Willis’ “Boogie Wonderland” among full-throated renditions of
Georgian and Ukrainian folk songs together with their own tongue-in-cheek
originals, like “Eyebrows”, “Team Building Exercise” and “The Universal Club
Song”, written and arranged by Stephen
Taberner, the group kept the audience intrigued and enthralled .
Particular highlights were a superb rendition of
Taberner’s lovely song “Warm”, and a mesmerising performance by Chorale member,
Dave Warren, of Taberner’s arrangement of Tom Waite’s “Picture In A Frame”.
Towards the
end of the program, 60 members of the audience, introduced by Taberner as Axis
of Spooky, joined the chorale on stage to sing treaty, which they had rehearsed
during a workshop that afternoon. The chorale then took back focus with a
sublime rendition of Rani Arbo's setting of the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem
“Crossing the Bar”.
By the time the program reached the inevitable encore, a funky arrangement of George Merrill’s, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, the audience could contain itself no longer, with many jumping to their feet in an impressive effort to boogie like no-one was watching.
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au