BWW Reviews: ADELAIDE FRINGE 2014: HENRY LAWSON GOES TO PRINCETON And Now Turns Up in Adelaide

Reviewed Saturday 22nd February 2014

Ian Coats takes us back in his personal history to the 1980s, when he was studying at Princeton, where Henry Lawson Goes To Princeton first began to take shape. Going through a bad time, he turned to the works of Lawson for comfort and began to take up song writing again, having previously done so before leaving Australia. He began performing them and found that they resonated with his American audiences. All these years later he has decided to blow the dust off of them and take them out for another airing for the Adelaide Fringe, for three performances at the Promethean.

The music has a country feel, but the lyrics are as Australian as kangaroos and koalas, reflecting both sides of the Pacific that inspired these songs. Although most of the songs use the poems of Lawson, a couple are written entirely by Coats, inspired by Lawson's writings.

Backing Coats, who accompanied himself on acoustic guitar, or piano, were four of Adelaide's finest musicians, who all have international reputations. Enrico Mick Morena, on drums, and bassist, Quinton Dunne, comprised the rock solid rhythm section. Countermelodies, various timbres, and brief instrumental solos, were provided by multi-instrumentalists, Stuart Day, on electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, and harmonica, and Julian Ferraretto on violin, mandolin, and even bowed saw.

With such luminaries in the band, one wished that the arrangements had more interest, and had given them more to do, allowing them to use the great skills that they have, more fully. Perhaps the arrangements had been kept relatively basic to fit with the feel of country music, but everything develops and moves on, and more interesting, exciting, and richer accompaniments could have added so much interest to this show.

The sound mix, unfortunately, was one of the worst that I can recall, with booming bass across the board drowning everything, and often taking off into uncontrolled oscillation. The lyrics were obscured by too much bass and not enough midrange in the voice, Day and Ferraretto could hardly be heard, Morena's bass drum was amplified and thudded far too loudly, the low E string on Coats's guitar had the bass wound up to the point of regularly taking off, and had so much bass applied to it that it sounded lower than Dunne's upright bass, which was also muddied by too much added bass. Although the two technicians at the sound and lighting desk could be seen checking and fiddling about with the mixing desk controls all night, it just seemed to get worse. Lighting, too, could have been better. There are a two more performances and so, hopefully, the technicians can get it right, or be replaced, before the next run.

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