[MUSIC/Comedy ~ AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE ~ UK]
THE POPEYE, FEB 27, 2023
John Otway is not exactly a household name. I mean, he is in my house, but in general houses. Especially not in Australia. When I saw this show listed in the Fringe guide I initially thought “that’s funny this guy has the same name as that crazy UK singer. Wait hang on…it IS that crazy singer! Where is he playing …ON THE POPEYE?!? Well that makes absolutely all the sense in the world. I first saw him in the concert movie URGH!A Music War, sandwiched between The Cramps, Oingo Boingo, XTC, Echo & the Bunnymen, Klaus Nomi, Gary Numan and others. The song was Cheryl’s Going Home and showcased Otways manic style and featured him running around the stage flinging himself into overhead barrel rolls while continuing to sing. His style was fling yourself now, bandage it later. I loved the song but definitely thought, “This guy is out there” and very shortly after “This guys for me”.
From there I discovered his work with Wild Willie Barrett an equally volatile performer and like-minded explosive guitar player. They made several albums together. Otway had two hit singles, twenty five years apart, but has continued to play gigs from everywhere from The Royal Albert Hall to…well The Popeye, recently racking up his 5,000th live performance. Even back in the day he wasn’t so much punk as punk infused, with a lot in common with the Davey Island pub rock scene. But his humour, unusual songs and bombastic and frenetic live shows brought him a huge audience. In the slipstream of punk a lot of stuff found deals and audiences that they may never have otherwise achieved, I’m thinking acts like Jilted John, John Cooper Clarke, etc. They didn’t fit any previous mould but bloody hell, great stuff.
One of those acts was Kevin Short & His Privates. In 1978 he released a single Punk Strut (it’s quite sort after these days). A punk rock dance craze. In more recent times he is a musician/raconteur/film maker and this evening the warm up act on a boat on the Torrens. Short might not look much like a punk these days in his banana shorts and matching banana shirt (with sailor cap) but through a mix of poems, songs, haiku’s and a vaudevillian via seaside gentleman’s club vibe, Short is very amusing.
So here we are on a Tuesday evening in Adelaide on the bloody Popeye with John Otway sitting off to the side (no dressing rooms on the Popeye) and assisted only by his much abused roadie Deadly and an array of instruments and effects pedals, and armed with some fantastic songs, the stories of a raconteur and an amazing energy John Otway turns in a blinder.
Opening with the brilliant Cor Baby That’s Really Free, we are aware this is going to be a very special gig. He tells us “I’m a pop star and I had TWO hits…25 years apart” and his self-effacing humour is perfectly balanced with his conviction. He explains that the flip side of the first song is really good “I mean if I didn’t tell you in advance, you might miss how good it is”. And tells us that in a BBC poll, Beware of the Flowers (‘Cos I’m Sure They Are Going to Get You – Yeah) was more popular than anything written by Bob Dylan, being voted the seventh most popular lyric in music history, number six was Yesterday by Paul McCartney. “Which,” John tells us, “makes this song almost as good as Yesterday”. It bloody is too. He breaks out his famous two necked hinged guitar and plays a unhinged version of Sweet’s Blockbuster. A song about poor phone coverage U R Breaking Up utilises one of his many gadgets, a peddle that interferes with the vocals which is hysterically funny. So, you get the idea, songs, attitude, very funny, quirky and quintessentially British eccentric. It’s a vibe I have always responded to with my love of artists like Vivian Stanshall, Wreckless Eric and Martin Newell. And the songs are terrific. I’m Cured (I Can’t Catch Love), the bonkers human drum kit of Body Talk. He tells us he’s going to do a Bob Dylan song and then does a bang on Dylan-esque version of Gloria Gaynors I Will Survive. His ‘disco song’ Bunson Burner (and second top ten hit) borrows the chorus from Disco Inferno (originally by Trammps in 1976 and has lots of scientific terminology but the line “You’re the kind of carbon I could date” is one of the best lines ever written. His big party piece in the UK is his cover of The Animals, House of the Rising Sun with a Rocky Horror style audience call and response. Given Otway plays in much bigger venues in the UK, and here we have twenty people on a boat who might not know all the answers I wondered how he’d pull that off. But enough people knew it and they were assisted by Kevin, Deadly and his crew. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
“There is (WHAT?) a house (WHERE?) in New Orleans (WHAT’S IT CALLED?) It’s called the Rising Sun (WHAT’S IT BEEN?) It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy (HOW DO YOU KNOW?) God know I know (WHO’S A PRAT?) I’m one…….”
And so on.
When you hear what the only thing a gambler needs, you’ll be rolling in the aisle, if indeed the Popeye had an aisle. A couple of new songs are excellent. Real Tears From Both Eyes and Five Kisses are funny and sweet early. He has already mentioned when he and Wild Willie Barret were on The Old Grey Whistle Test as complete unknowns one of the things that brought them to fame was a misjudged leap onto the amplifier which toppled and resulted in Otway landing his full body weight on his testicles. A strange way to get famous.
That song was Cheryl’s Going Home Tonight. A wonderfully plaintive angsty funny punky song about his girlfriend getting on the train to leave him. Great version of it tonight. John realises we still have a few minutes before we dock and gives us Rumplestiltskin a punk rock lullaby he had written for his daughter and finishes with the comic Barrett poem Headbutting which involves funny scenarios punctuated with Otway smashing his head into the microphone. Over the course of the show, he’s played several guitars, theremin with his elbow, used a mic stand made out of a coat hanger, utilised a ‘French girl singer in a box’ on backing vocals and a bunch of peddles.
I’d only ever been to one other Fringe show on The Popeye. It was a long time ago and it was awful. The audience spent most of the tedious performance hoping the captain would do us all a favour and pull a Titanic, to put us all out of our misery. With John Otway I could have stayed on board The Popeye for days.
The Fringe is so very massive these days. It’s expensive to put a show on, there are 1500 other shows vying for attention and bums on seats, often inspiring things to be less edgy, safer, more palatable to a Fringe audience. In many ways a show John Otway, is what used to make the Fringe so interesting and cool. It’s not your regular Fringe fare. He’s not easy to put in a basket, he’s not easy to sell to people who don’t know what he does. What he does do might be considered ‘outsider’ or ‘niche’, but it is such a wonderful, delightful and delicious niche. I knew a lot of the material, but you could go not knowing any of the stuff or anything about him and come away with a huge grin on your face and a place in your heart permanently reserved for John Otway.
Go and get on the Popeye.
Ian Bell
John Otway & Kevin Short continues on The Popeye from 8pm until Sun Mar 5.
Book at FringeTIX and adelaidefringe.com.au. Click HERE to purchase your tickets.
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SETLIST:
Cor Baby That’s Really Free,
Beware Of The Flowers (Cos I’m Sure They They’re Going To Get You),
Blockbuster,
U R Breaking Up,
Middle Of Winter,
I’m Cured (I Can’t Catch Love),
Body Talk,
I Will Survive,
Bunsen Burner,
House Of The Rising Sun,
Real Tears From Both Eyes,
Five Kisses,
Cheryls’s Going Home Tonight,
Rumblestiltskin,
Giving Headbutts
The Clothesline Rating...
Ian Bell
Wonderful, delightful and delicious.
