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.