Pseudo Echo @ The Gov, Adelaide 25/8/2023
Adelaide was the fourth show in for Pseudo Echo’s The Ultimate Tour celebrating an incredible career for this much loved Australian band. With a huge set list in store there was no time for a support act and with a massive back catalogue no doubt it was a massive challenge cramming everything in. Awesome way to bring in the weekend hearing these songs that helped shape Australian music in the 80s.
The set list was cleverly constructed by Pseudo Echo mastermind and mainstay Brian Canham. The archival footage before they came out featuring appearances on iconic Australian TV show Hey Hey It’s Saturday was definitely a trip down memory lane. With a big crowd assembled there was a huge round of appreciation as the band took the stage with the first part of the set focused on their 1984 debut album Autumnal Park. If any awards were going to be given out they would have taken home the prize for best dressed in a landslide.
Opening with Stranger In Me was followed by His Eyes and See Through. The crowd lifted hearing the bigger moments from that album in Destination Unknown, A Beat For You and Dancing Until Midnight. Picking up a couple of gears with hits from their second album Love An Adventure really got the hips shaking and the feet shuffling. Even now this album still stacks up and is loaded with great songs with the likes of Don’t Go, Try, Living In A Dream and Love An Adventure proving popular with the crowd. Canham took a moment to acknowledge their touring drummer learning the songs in two days and reflecting on working in a factory dreaming about being a rock star and not so much with woodworking.
With a short intermission the band returned to play songs from the much maligned album from 1988 Race. Whilst that album pushed the band in a different direction the criticism was probably a tad harsh. I’m not sure if many people in the crowd bought or streamed that album but was good to hear Eye Of The Storm, the Steve Moneghetti inspired Take On The World, Over Tomorrow and Fooled Again.
The show finale was a treasure trove of gold starting with the Ike and Tina Turner tune Nutbush City Limits followed by Real Life’s Send Me And Angel. Taking another moment to reflect Canham spoke of the show where they supported Siouxsie and the Banshees at the Astor Theatre in Melbourne and placing five hundred flyers on the windscreens of cars in the car park promoting their upcoming gig which ended up selling out and an opportunity to cross paths with Molly Meldrum who asked them to play on Countdown which changed the trajectory for Pseudo Echo. Listening, Funky Town which morphed in to covers of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and Black Night was just awesome topped off by encore tune Ultraviolet. Fantastic!
Live Review By Rob Lyon