Amigo The Devil, David Talley @ Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide 12/8/2025

Confession time! A month ago, I had no idea who or what Amigo the Devil was. I was asked if I would like to attend the show and my first thought was, it sounds very much like a Nu Extreme Heavy Metal band, of which I had no interest. Six songs into streaming the band and I was hooked. This was as far from metal as you could get. By the time of the gig, I was so engrossed in the music I was expecting great things of the show. I was not to be disappointed.

David Talley opened the evening to an already room full of people. David is guitarist in the band Amigo the Devil and hails from Colombia, which is why he probably got a generous fifty-minute opening slot. “Tonight, I’m going to be playing my own shit” was David’s introduction to the audience before introducing Raccoon, a song about living out of trash cans. “I’ve learnt a new word in Australia; I think you call this a bin chicken” he laughed.

David’s music blends story telling with occasional subliminal, occasional loud guitar playing and humour. Alone on stage, he plays original music, well, except for a version of Limp Bizkit’s Break Stuff, tells stories about the songs, all the while holding the crowd in the palm of his hand. Older Orphans is a song about not having kids and Hasta Laredo is about Onlyfans. “You know what that is?” he laughs.

Once the crowd recognises the Limp Bizkit song, Break Stuff, they loudly shout back lines like “Your best bet is to stay away Mfer”. Following the song, he tells of talking to his mother and father about the song. His mother thinks he wrote it and will probably go to jail with the lyrics. When he tells her he didn’t write it, she says “that’s Ok, but what is a limp biscuit?”

Oceans, a song about long distant love, only written “about a month ago”, Cemetery Skyline and Rain Cloud bought the tone down before David bought the vibe back up again with John Belushi, “a song I have no idea what it is about” and finishing the set with a roaring Dressing Up a Hard Time.

David kept the audience quiet while playing, which is no mean feat for a solo support artist. They were there to listen and listen they did, hanging on to every word, laughing at every funny story. Surprisingly David has no music available, but an album is hopefully coming later this year. There was a room full of people who will be looking out for that release.

The screen behind the stage lit up with “Gremlin Shit – Amigo the Devil” emblazed upon it when Amigo the Devil, a.k.a Danny Kiranos strolls on stage, acoustic guitar in hand. “It’s good to be back” he shouted at the audience who roared with approval. Playing solo, Danny started with the song Virtue and Vitriol, picking slowly and singing wistfully. Johnny Cash at his darkest came to mind. During the song the band crept quietly on stage and mid song the tempo changed when the band joined in. It was like being hit in the back of the head with a sledge hammer.

Amigo’s signature tune Murder at the Bingo Hall came early, the audience ready, in anticipation of contributing to “someone should call the cops, I’m killing it”. Towards the end Danny chides the audience with “I know it’s early in the set, but you can do better than that”, giving the crowd another chance at screaming the words again.

Changing to banjo, Dahmer Does Hollywood, was rolled out. Telling us that he had lost his house to a fire recently he said, with a smile on his face “he was not looking for pity, well perhaps a little. After all most of my songs have the word fire in them, except this one and it’s called It’s All Gone”.

“I can’t believe you have filled this room” led to Cannibal Within and then Danny “excused the band” while he played The Weight solo on stage.

Danny told stories and a few times he did say “well that was a lie”, so fiction blurred with truth. I Hope Your Husband Dies gave us a long story about a girl he was interested in who marries another guy and so the song came about. He even claimed to have played it to the couple with the husband saying “nice guitar picking”. Whether the story was true or not, it made for good listening and an interesting song, the crowd loving it, adding Oooh’s and Ahh’s at the appropriate places. We were then told there is a second part to the song that he hardly ever plays, but lucky Adelaide got the second part. It took a while, but soon we recognised it was actually a cover of Smash Mouth’s All Star and everyone went crazy.

Danny called for his partner, Gabby, to come out and join him in a cover of John Prine’s In Spite of Ourselves, the pair kissing during the song and the crowd encouraging them for more. She stays on stage for My Body is a Dive Bar.

With the band fully back on stage, Hungover in Jonestown is played and Danny broke a guitar string. With the live lead in hand, he began tapping it against the mike stand, playing keyboards, rejecting David Talley’s acoustic guitar, all the while waiting for the string to be fixed. When this was done (an autobiographical?) Cocaine and Abel spilt forth, with “I’m not proud of all the choices I have made for a lot of my life…”. This led into an instrumental jam that weaved and ebbed and built to a crescendo, only to crash back to quiet before building again.

Danny handed the banjo over to bassist Jason Deitz, “sometimes you have let an expert play”, to hit us with a banjo solo, complete with Duelling Banjo’s and AC/DC riffs, the band sitting at the edge of the stage watching in awe.

The cinematic Once Upon a Time in Texaco Pt 1 played out with a story of murder and hold ups. “We don’t do encores” proclaimed Danny as the band hurled into the opening strains of Hell and You and the crowd helping out with “I’d rot in hell with you”).

Danny said goodnight to the band who left the stage and he asked everyone to give a big applause to the staff who were working the venue. Nice touch. The show concluded with the beautiful Another Man’s Grave, sounding again like Johnny Cash. A perfect way to end a perfect show.

So, as a new comer to the band I have to say this was probably the best concert by a “new band to me” since I saw an unknown “to me” R.E.M. way back in 1989. Danny Kiranos is a showman, shaman, story teller, liar, but above all a wonderful songwriter and singer. It wasn’t a concert; it was an event.

I eagerly await his return.

Live Review by Geoff Jenke