The Triffids: You remind me very much of someone that I used to know...

A Secret In The Shape Of A Song – The Triffids and Friends

The Metro, Sydney

17/01/08

Twenty years ago I sat in London’s Dominion Theatre as a lanky, slightly frayed young man folded himself into a rickety bentwood chair and sang from deep inside himself. It made me want to come home.

This night – to paraphrase one of David McComb’s lyrics – despite a patent lack of him, the band and those songs were still present and often utterly moving. Secret… became a mix of reunion, celebration, tribute, and maybe the wake The Triffids themselves never got to have.

To find the band’s tour manager/wardrobe director, the spindly Handsome Steve Miller, a tuxedo’ed mix of greeter and theatre usher made things surreal enough. He then provided a suitably declamatory introduction for the band to appear. I told myself I’d be dispassionate and critical. That lasted until about the third bar of Too Hot To Move.

Graham Lee’s pedal steel drew tears. Alsy MacDonald and Martyn Casey provided a rich and melodic rhythm section. Robert McComb’s cross-currenting guitar was an underrated sound. And there was Jill Birt’s keyboards, and those lead vocals that mixed awkwardness and petulance, and contrast to David’s deeper murmurings of the heart.

The guests of the evening tried to fill out the band’s sound as well as that void where David’s voice should be. Lee pitied the people who’d never heard Chris Abrahams play piano. His rippling solo opening made Mark Snarski’s towering Bury Me Deep In Love even more heartbreaking. Unexpected was an appearance from Abrahams’ musical partner, Melanie Oxley. Her longing Conquer You was a highlight.

Casey’s fellow Bad Seed Mick Harvey is a man who should step forward more often. His desolate run at The Seabirds had all the exhausted agony of the relationship at its core.

Mark Dawson’s drums were a martial counterpoint to MacDonald’s lighter touch. He shone as The Blackeyed Susans celebrated their time as David’s vehicle. The Rob Snarski crooning of Ocean Of You showed McComb’s grasp of the pop traditions.

Having seen Steve Kilbey sleepwalk through some Church gigs lately, I was worried as the opening inhalation of drums announced the majestic need of Wide Open Road. But with the grin of a true fan, he was passionate and aching and better than ever imagined. He maybe even topped that with a visceral howl of Lonely Stretch.

Conversely, Youth Group’s Toby Martin’s sweeter tones were right for the melancholy of Trick Of The Light. The hit that never was, but always should have been.

Such contrasts went through the encores: a scything, almost psychedelic, Field Of Glass  – with Julian Wu’s and Brian Jonestown’s Ricky Maymi meaning five guitars were spiralling over each other – followed by the evening’s perfect full stop of Birt’s gentle questioning Tender Is The Night. That song has a central query of ‘Don’t you want to forget someone too?’ On this night, the answer was a resounding no.