Things Of Stone & Wood @ Magic Mirror Spiegeltent, Adelaide 15/3/2017

It really doesn’t get any better than having Things Of Stone & Wood play the Magic Mirror Spiegeltent at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. The two go together perfectly and for me this show was one of the stand outs for at the Fringe this year. In short Things Of Stone & Wood were brilliant playing their career defining album 1993 top ten charting gold record album The Yearning from start to end. The crowd were enthusiastic and the band seemed to really relish the energy in the room.

Share This Wine and Heidelberg got things under way and drummer Tony Floyd remarked that the band had never broken up but took an extended hiatus and now enjoy every opportunity to play music together. Happy Birthday Helen was just awesome and one of those songs you always want to hear and tonight was no different except front man Greg Arnold didn’t fall through the floor as he eluded to in one of his stories about touring this album way back when.

Another single Rock This Boat was popular and interestingly the song Wrapped hadn’t been played since 1996. Floyd joked that the band members were five when the album came out but later said they were in the mid twenties giving an indication of how old they really are asking the crowd if they remembered their shows from the Old Lion and The Tivoli. Arnsie (as Greg is referred to on stage) said the band went to pain staking detail in putting the tracks on the album in the right order and getting the timings right which was ruined by the dreaded cassette.

Single Perfect Raindrop was fantabulous and Rain Fell Down was a reference to Arnold and bassist Michael Allen being terrible tenants and trying to explain how foot prints got on the ceiling. Allen commented that if Frente didn’t have the hit single Accidentally Kelly Street that their song Barkly Street would have been a hit. It didn’t take long for an hour to sail past finishing on Charlie Scanlon and whilst the crowd stood in appreciation making plenty of noise for an encore it wasn’t to be leaving fans to reflect on what was a great night.

Review by Rob Lyon