DAVE'S DIARY - 23 JULY 2003

Review: ADAM HARVEY-FELICITY, HALLAM HOTEL

It's no surprise this double billed winter return concert sold out six weeks prior at the Gippsland gateway.

The young veterans and multi Gold Guitar winners have worked the Aussie bush and outer and inner suburbs for more than a decade.

With regional TV advertising and variety show cameos to make up for lack of airplay their songs were familiar to an avid audience just half an hour from the GPO.
Felicity, just 26, also toured with western swing band 'Feral Swing Katz' but chanced her vocals on new songs with Harvey's band.

'Big Black Cloud In Your Life' - penned on a Nashville trip with 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' producer Randy Scruggs - reflected her maturity since her award winning 'Country Girl In An Urban World.'

Those songs were punctuated by social comment of new 'Take Me To A Place' and riveting rendition of Patsy Cline rockabilly hit 'Too Many Secrets.'

Fiddle and mandolin dexterity of Hughie Curtis fuelled the fires for the singer on 'The One That Got Away, Got Away With My Heart' and 'This Is Life' from fourth album 'New Shadow.'
'This is about jumping on the ride of life and making the most of it," Felicity said of a song penned with the late Roger Miller's son Dean, "things don't get handed to you."
But her set, which ended with Tex-Mex laced 'That's What I Call Love,' should have been extended.

Or maybe she could have done more than a belated return with Harvey for his finale duet on 'Ain't Love A Lot Like That.'

But this was a garrulous gig for Harvey whose booming baritone filled a cavernous corral.
At 28 he has more stage presence than acts who have trod the boards for decades.
So it's no surprise he lopes through songs diverse as George Jones ' Love Bug', Red Rivers 'Sugar Talk,' 'Treat Me Like A Dog,' 'Gone Gone, Gone,' 'When Lonely Met Love' and 'The House That Jack Built.'

With the best male voice in Australian country music Harvey is no joyous jogger - his shows have become enriched and/or bogged down with humour.

Like most comedians, Harvey's self deprecatory jokes are funny - especially the first time.
And apt when he parodies peers Adam Brand, Kasey Chambers (on Chuck Wagon & The Wheel's 'Beauty's In The Eye Of The Beer Holder'), Gina Jeffreys in Cornell Hurd's 'Genitalia Of A Fool' and 'The Wiggles' in a visual gag of 'Little Cowboy Dreams'.

Harvey peaked in 'I Blame You,' 'Working Overtime,' 'Call It Love' and cheating song 'Hush.'
There's no danger of Adam losing his clown prince crown but more duets may have been chivalrous and an aural and visual pleasure. Harvey gave this audience what they wanted but a more discerning crowd may have wanted extra vocal vibrance, a commodity he has in spades.

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