The Church @ The Gov, Adelaide 4/12/2025
This is the third time I have seen The Church this year and the number of times I have seen them since I first heard the strains of The Unguarded Moment some forty four years ago has long been lost in the mist of time. The Church may have had revolving doors when it comes to members, but the band has just quietly moved on. Tonight, we had Ian Haug (ex Powderfinger) on guitar. “Ian is from Brisbane” Steve Kilby told us. “He used to be in a famous band but is now slumming it with The Church”. The “new kid” in the band, Ash Naylor (Even, Paul Kelly band etc) also on guitar. “He is from Melbourne and has only been with us for five years”. Nicholas Meredith played drums while Tim Powles, the current longest serving member alongside Steve Kilby, played anything within reach. “I asked Tim what he wanted for a retirement present and he said he wanted a watch, so I let him”. Cameron Mackenzie was filling in for a sick Jeffery Cain this evening.
The band entered the stage for the Singles Tour: A Career Retrospective, to the sounds of Vangelis’s Blade Runner. The Church’s singles history has been very hit and miss over the years, as Steve Kilby will tell us several times over the evening. Opener Columbus from 1986 did not chart which is criminally insane. This was The Church opening the evening in top blazing form.
Steve looked out over the crowd and with a smile said “We are The Crunch, a Church cover band. It’s good to be back at The Gov” He then claimed the second song Electric Lash to be “one of the worst singles ever. If there was a dictionary entry called “Worst Song Ever” this would be listed.” That came as a shock as the Séance album from which it came is a personal favourite of mine. Was he serious or joking? It was hard to tell with Steve Kilby.
The Church released a double single in 1981. “I wanted two singles in the chart at the same time, like The Beatles. A bit of success went to my head. Who saw that coming?” Needless to say, neither charted but we got to hear Tear it All Away. It may not have been a hit but the sound is pure Church.
The story of how The Unguarded Moment came about was a show highlight. Steve told us he sold his soul to the devil after supporting The Zarsoff Brothers. While listening to a Led Zeppelin album, he told the devil he would do anything to have a hit record and the devil (Steve, in a satanic voice) told him he shall get his wish. However, it came with the condition that it would be an Australian pub rock beer anthem. All good fun. The song had everyone singing along as the guitars ripped through the song in fine chiming style. The song is nearly forty five years old and is as fresh as the day it was released.
Block was a deeper cut and Metropolis, “Our last hit and girls screaming at me” was faultless. Steve then told us he wasn’t well. He had a throat issue. “I went to the doctor and he told me I sounded terrible. I said you know this from checking my throat? No, he said, I heard you on the radio yesterday”. Steve soldiered on. One critic reviewed the song It’s No Reason as Puff the Magic Dragon on bad acid. The song, with Ian Haug on mandolin was a thing of beauty. Reptile closed out the first set in all its powerful exquisiteness.
Set two was all about the music. There was little talking during the set and it became obvious Steve really wasn’t well. Any other band would probably have dropped a few songs to get the singer through, but The Church played the full set. Almost With You and the sonic barrage of guitars that is When You Where Mine was a perfect opening for the set.
Ripple, Destination, Constant in Opel played forth and what may well have been the musical highlight of the evening, Another Century from the underrated man woman life death infinity album, rolled out one after the other. Looking at Ashley Naylor and Ian Haug playing, one found it hard to tell if they were competing against each other or complementing each other. I feel it may be a bit of both.
Under the Milky Way got the phones out, creating a little universe system within The Gov. This song is timeless. “This will be our National Anthem when I am dead and my son will get all the royalties” Steve laughed. He is probably right.
Kilbey thanked the people down the front for coming, thanked the people in the garden for coming and the people up the back. He then thanked the people who didn’t come, as the band ripped into the final number, Tantalised ironically, or perhaps planned, from the same album that the song that opened the evening came from, Heyday. The band were blazing away on eight cylinders. This was pure sonic, rock ‘n roll heaven.
The encore commenced with the latest single Sacred Echoes (Part Two) a tune that shows The Church has plenty of new music left in them yet. “A bit of Rock n Roll fluff” finished the night in Space Saviour, playing it heavier and faster than the original studio version. The band left the stage leaving the audience in awe of what they had just seen.
People left the venue discussing what singles they hadn’t played. She Never Said, Too Fast for You, Your Still Beautiful came to mind. But then if they had played those, what songs would have been dropped.
The Church are still as relevant today, in 2025, as they were forty-five years ago, in 1980 when I first heard the opening strains of An Unguarded Moment. Get well soon Steve.
Live Review by Geoff Jenke