Taste @ The GC at The German Club, Adelaide 9/3/2017
What a treat for Taste die-hard fanatics 40 years on, one of the premier rock bands in Australia in the 1970’s back recording and playing a special Fringe show in the city of churches. Gone were the days when there was long hair, many girls at their shows, knocking on stage room doors to get up and personal and generally hailing the band as their idols.
Ken Murdoch (guitar / vocals), Joey Amenta (lead guitar / vocals), Michael Tortoni (bass) remain as the 3 original of the Taste quartet minus Virgil Donati (drums) who is one of Australia’s and the world’s leading drummers and now based in the US. They found Damien Corniola, a younger drummer who idolised Donati’s drumming skills and knew Taste’s music prior to joining. Corniola is quite a drum whiz and has added a different dynamics to the music.
Taste opened the show with Hello / Tickle Your Fancy and Group E from their 1976 Top 20 Tickle Your Fancy album which got the small but loyal crowd going. Taste were keen to feature their new material and played a number of songs from their most recent independent release Life on Earth (title track), Remedy, Room full of Angels and Fatal Shore. This followed by I Don’t Wanna Be Like You and Sanctuary from their 2007 Rock is Dead album.
Taste highlighted their new single I am God from their latest album which has had over 150,000 views online, a number they are proud of. The band’s most popular 70’s chart topping success Boys Will Be Boys from the 1977 Knights of Love record gave the crowd ‘a taste’ of what they came for followed by Same Old Story. To conclude the evening the band finished with the musically influenced Just as the Water Flows with Amenta’s fine high range vocals on song from the Knights of Love long-play.
Although some of the original Taste fans in the audience would have liked more songs from their first two 70’s Top 20 albums, Tickle Your Fancy and Knights of Love, they got a ‘taste’ of both old and new material from all four records.
Music lovers can take away the four individual’s fine musical talents, the energy and joy of seeing the band playing live again, the chiming duel guitar solos and fine rock voices of Murdoch and Amenta that we remember that remind us and keep Taste’s music alive, as one of our finest rock acts of the mid – late 70s. Music fans will be hoping there is more ‘tasteful’ songs and new music left in the tank to follow.
Review by David Kerr