Inspiral Carpets, The Earthmen @ The Croxton, Thornbury VIC 5/8/2023
Indie Pop/Rock band The Earthmen re-united for the Inspiral Carpets gig and the reception they received showed they have been sorely missed. The band formed in 1991 and their final gig was 1999. The band released a retrospective, College Heart in 2016 and another, Periscope in 2021 and since 2016 have only played a few spasmodic gigs.
The Earthmen fitted nicely as support to the Inspiral Carpets with their fresh sounding indie pop, reminiscent of 90’s British pop. They opened with Scene Stealer and Figure Eight before Scott Stevens attempted to tell us about the songs, but his voice was unfortunately lost with the audience talking over him between songs. However, the music was pure joy and their eleven-song set was way too short. The final song 9 Day Wonder had an extended musical ending with the drummer setting a marching beat that was darn good. The Earthmen, a band I wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more off.
Inspiral Carpets hailed from the British Madchester movement of the late 1980’s/ early 90’s. The band went through many line-up changes before the release of their debut album, Life in 1990. Three more albums followed before it all came crashing down when their record label dropped them.
The band reformed in 2003, but singer Tom Hingley left the band in 2011 and original singer Stephen Holt rejoined. Another hiatus from 2017 after drummer Craig Hill sadly passed away, but the Carpets have come back to the live circuit this year.
This was their first Australian tour since 1993 and people came out in droves. It was wall to wall people from the front of the venue to the back for the 90-minute hit laden set. Bucket hats were plentiful amongst the punters for this last show of the current tour, in Australia.
Joe, from their self-released 1989 Demo album opened proceedings and the band then gave something for everyone during the set. Generations from 1992 followed and then Weakness and another from the Demo album in Butterfly.
The album Life was probably the one that resonated with Australians. I remember hearing the tracks This is How It Feels and She Comes in the Fall on Triple J and running out the buy the album. These two tracks came out early and This Is How It Feels got a massive sing-a-long from the crowd and a wonderful military drumming sound from the new drummer Kev Clark. A young lady climbed up on someone’s shoulders during This is How It Feels and we were told after she was famous because there is a YouTube clip with her on shoulders at Glastonbury in 2022.
Their roadie came on stage and keyboard player Clint Boon commented he was the “new Noel Gallagher” in reference to the fact Noel Gallagher was indeed once upon a time their roadie, pre-Oasis.
Two Worlds Collide from 1992’s Revenge of the Goldfish album sounded like there were double the number of musicians on stage. Inspiral Carpets have released one new album since reforming and Let You Down was played from it, the song sounding like it would have sat nicely on any of their earlier albums.
The songs kept coming in Caravan, Move, Sackville, Directing Traffik before the final salvo of Keep the Circle Around (Sounding a little like The Stone Rosey?), Uniform, with the hit Dragging Me Down closing out the set.
They were soon back with Commercial Reign and then a full on sixties vibe with the cover of 96 Tears, originally done by ? and the Mysterians. The organ intro to Saturn 5 had the audience going off for one last time.
Inspiral Carpets may not have reached the heights of other 90’s Brit Pop bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp, but after seeing them tonight and hearing all these wonderful songs, one wonders, why not?
Live Review By Geoff Jenke