Live Review: A Weekend In The Gardens: Icehouse, James Reyne, Clare Bowditch

Summer in Melbourne is usually capped off with the Labour Day long weekend, but the launch of new festival A Weekend In The Gardens could see the start of a new tradition. Conceived by the same organisers who are behind A Day On The Green's winery series, this three-day concert features stalwart (ARIA-winning) local talent: John Farnham, Daryl Braithwaite and Ross Wilson kicked off proceedings on Friday, while Amy Shark, San Cisco and Boy & Bear ensured the younger generation were not left mooching around at home in boredom on Saturday.

The final day of the concert starts with ominous clouds and the low rumbling of showers. In the late-afternoon humidity, Clare Bowditch bounces exuberantly on stage with her husband Marty Brown (percussion), Andre Warhurst (guitar), Xani Kolac (violinist, vocalist and one-half of The Twoks) and Warren Bloomer (bass). "Our band is like a community — sometimes there are just two of us, sometimes there are 12 of us," Bowditch says within a continuous stream of effervescent banter that covers everything from her dead-end job in a call centre that led to her starting the band, to witty musings on relationships that inspire some of her most famous songwriting. 

In the flesh, she is an uncontainable aura of warm energy and mild slapstick, keeping the tech hands on their feet by accidentally breaking a microphone stand and then spilling a bottle of water on stage. Without skipping a beat, she immediately pretends to hobble on the arm of the mic stand and croaks, "When I'm 99, I'll still be writing songs!"

Between crooning past hits like When The Lights Went Down, a playful cover of George Michael's Faith and the oft-requested song at weddings Between The Tea And Toast, Bowditch deftly brings gravitas with the soulful I Thought You Were God. It is a song that comes to mind, she reflects, when reading Leonard Cohen's final letter to his longtime muse, Marianne Ihlen. "Google it, especially if you are awake at 3am like me."  Kolac's bravura experimentation with the violin and her lilting vocals complement Bowditch's voluptuous notes perfectly, particularly in the joyful Let's Go To Bed, and a hip hop inspired new track in her forthcoming eighth album.

The crowds are out in full force half an hour later when pub-rock favourite James Reyne and his four-strong band take to stage. Under a fiery sunset, Reyne invokes the era of mullets and carefree weekends spent tooling around with the Holden after a VB tinnie or two. All the classics from Australian Crawl and Reyne's solo career are checked off to rapturous delight from the mostly middle-aged audience: Hammerhead, Motor's Too Fast, Fall Of Rome and the recently resurged ballad (thank you, Puberty Blues): Reckless (Don't Be So...). Reyne loses no time in getting down to business and it shows: the familiar guitar riffs, the steady roll-out of tracks, one after another, with little banter in between. However, he still sarcastically chides an audience member over texting in the middle of his performance. It fits with his battle-hardened stage persona but, just to be sure, you better not get your phone out at any of his future gigs.

When he launches into Downhearted and the chorus-driven The Boys Light Up, nearly everyone jumps to their feet. An enthusiastic guy giddily runs up and down the aisle, urging the remaining stragglers to stand up. It seems disrespectful (and un-Australian) not to.

At exactly 9.30pm, we ooh and aah as the nightly Moomba fireworks light up the sky. At their conclusion, the stage lights illuminate again to reveal Icehouse assembled on stage and the first twangs of Icehouse reverberate from Iva Davies' guitar. The band is about to kick off their 40 Years Live anniversary tour and this is a well-timed preview. A full arsenal of lighting and special effects are utilised: a running kaleidoscope of graphics and photo montages from the band's youthful days as Flowers are projected continuously on the onstage screen, and coloured beams rotate furiously on the rigs. Dry ice fog fans out at key moments, prompting Davies to cough a couple of times before proclaiming to an unseen stage hand, "Keep pumping ice out like that, Alex, and I won't be singing after 41 years!"

As a result of a pre-Christmas accident, lead guitarist Paul Gildea temporarily swaps with keyboardist/vocalist Michael Paynter for most of the performance. Davies praises the quick-learning Paynter, who also shows impressive vocal range in the falsetto notes of Man Of Colours and Don't Believe Anymore. Glenn Reither doubles down on second keyboards and adds the requisite saxophone notes that highlight many of the Davies's synth-rich compositions such as Electric Blue, Miss Divine, No Promises, Touch The Fire and Hey Little Girl. The band pays tribute to their fledgling days with a cover of T Rex's Bang A Gong (Get It On).

The audience swoons in pure '80s pop indulgence. The band repeats and extends choruses to encourage singalongs, sometimes at a fraction too long, but the crowd laps it up nonetheless. "I love you, Iva!" screams a young woman beside this scribe who looks too young to have remembered the band in their heyday. Davies — tall, tanned and mullet-free — is visibly touched. We Can Get Together and another unofficial Aussie anthem Great Southern Land end the set. An encore yields Can't Help Myself and Nothing Too Serious, with the close-up images of a skeleton in the projection almost a reference to Gildea's injuries.

It's an unabashed throwback to the time when Aussie pop and pub rock reigned supreme in our cultural landscape. As a fitting complement to Moomba, A Weekend In The Gardens couldn't be any more patriotic.