Big Country, The Gov, Adelaide 11/3/2018
After the success of Big Country’s last tour a couple of years ago they return for another big show at The Gov. There is no shadow of a doubt in saying that the band has plenty of fire in the belly even after thirty seven years touring the world and this show was fantastic. Fans were in their element as the band took them on a journey through their back catalogue including hits from albums such as The Crossing, Steeltown and The Seer.
Adelaide has been well and truly spoilt for choice with the very high calibre of touring acts coming through town over the last couple of weeks with Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide 500, Adelaide Festival and other the others on tour commanding attention. Big Country join that company, they look and sound great and with an armoury of hits to choose from made this one show not to miss. It was a solid turn out and a few familiar faces who were on hand earlier in the week to see Andrew Strong play.
It was a hero like welcome as Big Country took to the stage opening with Porrohman spanning nearly ten minutes and showcasing some very classy musicianship. Bruce Watson said to the loyal following ‘How are you for a Sunday night” which followed with a punter yelling out happy birthday prompting the response from Bruce saying “I’m only a 102” jokingly. Bruce also mentioned that Big Country would be returning in November 2019 much to the delight of fans.
Harvest Moon is a stellar tune and Bruce spoke of the dreaded jet lag and how his jokes were getting lost. Then it was 1000 Stars followed the catchy as all hell single Look Away which got the crowd going. Steeltown was popular as was Bruce’s references to the weird rules of AFL and how they wear such tight pants and not really knowing why he mentioned that putting it down to jet lag.
The sing-a-long in Lost Patrol was one of many highlights in the set as was the banter between Bruce and his son Jamie Watson who was on lead guitar. Standing back and watching it is hard not smiling to see how much playing in this band means to them and the reactions of the fans hearing these songs that mean so much to them. People can argue all they like about the relative merits of this line up of this band but singer Simon Hough stamps his mark on these songs yet not sounding to dissimilar from what we know and have heard from Big Country, long live these songs and Big Country.
Close Action, Inwards, Chance, Wonderland and Fields Of Fire (400 Miles) were just superb and topped off a great night out. The crowd made plenty of noise and the and band returned for an encore consisting solely of the chart topping single In A Big Country which literally brought the house down. There are plenty of fans that will no doubt be up for another night of Big Country when they return in November 2019.
Live Review by Rob Lyon