Live Review: Us & Them

Straying far and wide across the state from their normal home at Norfolk Basement in Fremantle, the efficacious Record Club have taken to the road to perform various renditions of classic rock albums. Tonight's show was the second performance after a sold-out gig at Settler's Tavern in Margaret River with supergroup Us & Them, a band of local talents from acts such as Boom! Bap! Pow!, Ghost Hotel, Steve Hensby Band, Villains and Bonnie Scott's Jazz Duo. Together these daring musicians took on the challenge of replicating the seminal psychedelic masterpiece The Dark Side Of The Moon by avant-garde rockers Pink Floyd.

Badlands has only been open for live music for a couple of months and has already established itself as the go-to live rock venue in Perth, with its generously priced drinks, spicy hot food truck and ample vantage points around the main stage. The audience were clearly charged up and eager to witness the eighth Floyd album being performed with all its spacey sonic wizardry. Opening with the eerie vocal samples and oozy slide guitar of Speak To Me/Breathe, the swaying instrumental sounds drifted effortlessly — as authentic as the original. So began the journey into the album's hypnotic grooves.

David Gilmour's lead guitar was captured truthfully by Hensby, who wielded his Gibson ES-355 effortlessly and provided epic renditions of Gilmour's solos, sending the crowd into star-stuck frenzy. Elysia Murphy's vocal solo on The Great Gig In The Sky lifted to roof, with her stunning operatic high tones just one of the many highlights of the night's recital.

The clock's chime of Time rang out while scenes from the 1939 movie The Wizard Of Oz were projected on the backdrop. It has been said there is a subliminal synchronicity between this classic fantasy film and Floyd's sonic adventures and, although this show didn't completely follow the movie throughout, its reference added to spectacle and mystique. The band exited the stage after what would have been the end of side one of the original vinyl cut.

To fill the interlude, the night's host, Steve Perkins, promptly entertained and promoted Record Club's forthcoming events. He also made an attempt at an onstage quiz that clearly had not been rehearsed, yet still generated some amusement. 

The band returned to the stage to welcome applause with the tracks Money, Us And Them, and Any Colour You Like all reproduced with interstellar musical precision and wonder. Soaring synths and moody organs droned over dreamy percussion licks that had the audience transfixed over every moment. After finishing off the album with the dramatic end track Eclipse, we were treated to several encores featuring other great Floyd hits Wish You Were Here and Another Brick In The Wall. These had everyone in the packed-out venue singing along in unison, clearly moved by the anthemic take on one of history's greatest conceptual, and most influential, albums.