Live: Augie March
By Emily Piesse • Sep 9th, 2009 • Section: Music
Augie March
Augie March
The Forum
August 29, 2009
By all accounts, Glenn Richards is the antithesis of your average rock star. Literary, introverted and reluctant to perform, he’s notorious for being gruff when it comes to taking to the stage. Suffice to say, I went to Augie March’s final concert with low expectations. When a band’s lead singer admits that he actually finds it hard to generate emotion on stage and doesn’t really like performing, it tends to create an impression. Essentially, you’d be better off sitting at home in the comfort of your lounge room with the boys from Shepparton on rotation than in the crowded bowels of the Forum for the band’s last hurrah.
Luckily, I was wrong. For all his posturing, Richards can turn it on for the crowd when he has to. It was about five songs or so into the line-up – during a rendition of Vineyard – when the band really found its legs (with a little help from a brass section trio). It’s partly the nature of the song itself, but there was a palpable lift in energy from that point that helped carry the rest of the show.
Despite some much-publicised self-criticism regarding the band’s latest album, Watch Me Disappear, several songs (particularly The Slant) were among the best received. Old favourite This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers, from the Strange Bird album, was a crowd pleaser, while the poignant There is no such place from Sunset Studies showcased Richards’ extraordinary songwriting and vocal skills and was easily the most emotional point in the evening.
While at times the performance felt laboured – the last show of a long and arduous tour – it had moments of verve and tight musicianship. Richards’ call out to the ‘Augie March family’ towards the end of the show was an unexpected and touching nod to the band’s loyal grassroots base.
That aside, there was little else to suggest this was the band’s final gig for now, and possibly forever. Richards cracked a joke about Wimbledon and saving your best set for last, while bass guitarist Edmondo Ammendola lightened the mood at one point by donning a pair of oversized white Y-fronts over his jeans.
Capping things off with a nod to tradition (and commercial exposure), the band finished with its rollicking anthem One Crowded Hour. One gets the impression that Richards isn’t too sorry to be leaving that particular piece of Augie history behind. I think it’s a different story for the fans.
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