Ian Moss @ The Gov, Adelaide 10/4/2024
Ian Moss entertained Adelaide fans with a superb solo acoustic concert at The Gov. In line with the style of show it was a seated event. Mossy showed his professionalism and class from start to finish, sharing songs from solo albums, his Cold Chisel days, and a couple of soulful covers.
The majority of his solo tracks came from the classic Matchbook album, celebrating its thirty-fifth anniversary, and his latest production Rivers Run Dry – the title track from which kicked off the show. He then took us back thirty five years with Out Of The Fire. Between all songs there was a bit of banter, but nothing overdone and he was constantly playing some amazing acoustic riffs while telling us his yarns – and some classic funny stories there were too!
His one and only “political” song for the evening was Message From Baghdad off the 2005 Six Strings album – and the lyrics in that message certainly resonate today with what’s happening in that part of the world!
Mossy kept telling us how Don Walker helped him on so many occasions with lyrics or song choices on his albums, and especially with many of the Matchbook tracks like Such A Beautiful Thing. For his recent work he revealed that many of the lyrics were written in collaboration with Troy Cassar-Daley, whom he has recently finished touring with. After several songs off the album he did quip “have I mentioned Rivers Run Dry yet?”.
He played a country-style song called What Can I Do – which earned him his first Country Golden Guitars award, and jokingly said that Troy probably had “forty of the f#!%ing things”. At one stage he even stopped his between-track riffs as he told the hilarious story from Cold Chisel’s early days when they were lent a station wagon to drive over to Perth for some gigs, back when the highway was a badly corrugated dirt road. Volunteering twice to take a wheel to the nearest petrol station to fix a blowout, he ended up sleeping in comfort followed by a hearty breakfast while the rest of the band were stuck in the freezing cold. This story formed the basis for Troy’s lyrics to Nullarbor Plain.
In between his solo tracks, he snuck in a few Cold Chisel songs, starting with Flame Trees and the only track penned by him from the legendary East album – Never Before. He also took us back to 1953 (yay … something older than me – just!) with a beautiful, haunting cover of Arthur Hamilton’s Cry Me A River, originally recorded by Julie London.
The main set finished with possibly his most famous solo tracks Telephone Booth and Tucker’s Daughter – the latter was supposed to be a song not about boy/girl, but Don Walker convinced him “nah – stick with the boy/girl crap”. After a brief break, he returned for an encore with two Cold Chisel classics: Choirgirl and Bow Hill before finishing with an amazing cover of Georgia (On My Mind).
Ian is a highly polished and talented performer with a sensational voice. Hearing him solo on acoustic you really get a feel for just how good a guitarist he is. Hearing all of the songs – especially the Chisel ones – stripped back to slowed down, melodious acoustic was unbelievable, and I am so grateful I was there to experience it. My partner is usually quite adept at picking up faults in a concert, and she even said (in agreement with me) that “it was flawless – there was nothing you could fault about that!”. The only downfall was that, from where we were sitting, all we could see was the neck of his guitar … and a bloody big speaker! If they set him up about half a metre forward, and there was plenty of room, it would have been perfect.
Well done Mossy, and I hope that turning seventy next year will be a good enough excuse for him to come back for another tour!
Live Review by John Glennie