Brian Cadd, Brian Ruiz @ The Trinity Sessions, Goodwood SA 11/8/2023

Brian Cadd is a legend of Australian rock. He was in the bands The Groop and Axiom before venturing off on a solo career. He has also written songs for many artists, including The Masters Apprentices, Little River Band, The Pointer Sisters and John Farnham.

Adelaide artist Brian Ruiz opened proceedings, to a sold-out audience, in the beautiful Trinity church building. Brian had played in Adelaide folk/rock band Fruit in the 1990’s and even got to tour America with them. Tonight, he was solo, armed with just a guitar. He did admit it has been a while since he had played live and laughingly apologized up front if he told the same old stories as before or missed some lyrics.

Brian’s music was a mixture of soul, a little funk and blues and his voice filled the hall. Songs were about family and life with one song about life experience being Better Life, a song he wrote after seeing homeless people in the U.S.A. The song applies to here in Adelaide just as much as America. A cover of A Change is Gonna Come closed out a really good set.

A little-known fact about Brian Cadd is, he played with the American band The Flying Burrito Brothers from 1991 to 1996. Brian walked on stage and opened with the track Eye of the Hurricane from the 1994 album of the same name from the Burrito’s. While Brian may not be as agile as he was (he is 76 years of age), his voice certainly is still the same as it ever.

After the opening song Brian joked “we will be here for 17 hours. I am going to play every song I ever wrote and then do six songs by Izzy Dye” (That is a name from Australian rock music history that I am guessing not many will know.) Axiom’s Arkansas Grass rolled out next, Brian soon having the audience clapping and singing along.

Don’t You Know It’s Magic, a song Brian wrote for Johnny Farnham came next, along with a couple of Farnham stories that Johnny may not have wanted told. Not sure if he has told these stories before as even the band behind him were laughing.

Stories of being in Adelaide abounded. Stories of drinking Barossa Pearl wine, Southwark beer and Brandivino, of meeting girls who wanted to show him their “stamp collection” and life on the road. Brian may take his music seriously, but his time on stage is all about having fun.

Brian’s first band was The Groop with Ronnie Charles on vocals, and tonight he highlighted this era with a mix of their two finest songs, Such A Lovely Way and the first song he ever wrote Woman Your Breaking Me “with the worst music bridge ever written in a song” he commented.

My Baby’s Gone was the last song Axiom ever recorded apparently and the stories he told before playing the theme song to Alvin Purple, about the filming, cannot be repeated here. The song however, had a beautiful violin solo from Clare O’Meara within it.

The hit Let Go came next and to show it was not all about the hits tonight, he then played a wonderful blues song he wrote in Nashville called Slow Walk and released with The Bootleg Family in 2016. The song stood up well alongside all the “known” ones.

A couple of tracks from his debut 1972 solo album in Every Mother’s Son and Silver City Birthday Celebration Day followed before a newish song stole the evening. Everybody’s Leaving is about people dying, pop stars and just “ordinary” people, but they all leave something behind. You could have heard a pin drop in the hall. Beautiful and the highlight of the evening. Brian Cadd has beautiful maturity as a singer/ songwriter. The song was made even more poignant with the news the next day of the passing of Ron S Peno from Died Pretty.

Two of his biggest hits closed out the set, Axiom’s Little Ray of Sunshine and perhaps his finest recorded moment in Ginger Man.

While the band didn’t leave the stage, the standing ovation had Brian promising a couple more songs if “we promised to dance”. A resounding yes gave us the Bootleg Family’s hit Your Mama Can’t Dance before Brian turned to Stephan on guitar and nodded. The strains of The Rolling Stones Honky Tonk Women sounded out, Brian telling us “This is the greatest rock and roll song ever written”. No argument from the audience. This melded into Walking the Dog, Gloria, Hang on Sloopy, Satisfaction before heading back into the conclusion of Honky Tonk Women. What a finish to a great show.

After The Groop medley earlier, Brian asked if anyone remembered the songs and someone yelled out “Timeless”. That is a word that sums up the whole evening.

Live Review by Geoff Jenke