The Charlatans: Classic Brit-Pop Shakes Down The Gov Walls ~ Live Music Review

[MUSIC ~ UK] Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, Tue 11 Oct, 2022. The Gov is heaving with Brit-pop fans and ex-pat Englishmen to see the mighty Charlatans turn in a blinder on a Tuesday night in little ol’ A-Town. Like many of the great bands of the Brit-Pop/Madchester era of glorious music Australia never got the chance to see these guys back in the day. Since 2020 they have been semi-regular visitors down here and seemed to have worked out we like them, we REALLY like them. This was a ‘best of’ tour and while they didn’t have much in the way of chart toppers in this country the set is packed with Indie classics, many of which were regular dancefloor fillers when I DJed at Indie Clubs like POP! back in those prehistoric days. While it is mindboggling that a lot of these songs are now thirty years old, they still sparkle and shine and fill the room with a joyous celebration. Opening with the brilliant I Don’t Want To See The Sights, and then smashing into the car start opening of Weirdo, the lads are in fine form. Singer Tim Burgess is in great voice and chatty and playful with the punters. The rest of the chaps including original members Martin Brunt (bass) and Mark Collins (guitar since 1991), Tony Rogers on keys since ’97 and ex-Verve drummer Peter Salisbury on drums, are possibly more business-like and just get on with being ace. Can’t Get Out Of Bed, Then, So Oh come in quick succession and their combination of jangly guitars, kick-ass organ, driving basslines and Burgess’s vocals are driving pulses and feet on the dancefloor. Organ/keys were such a big part of the sound of that era for me. Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and many other outfits used the keyboard parts to infuse a sixties, trippy psych vibe to their sounds, making music that was utterly contemporary but dipped in the past. So fantastic to hear songs like Sleepy Little Sunshine, One To Another and A Man To Be Told but people do go particularly nuts for Tremelo Song, Plastic Machinery and the epic and timeless The Only One I Know, before finishing the set with a rapturously received North Country Boy and How High. A one point in the set Tim mentioned how much they like playing The Gov (of course they do - it’s one of the best joints in the country!) and when somebody suggested he take some mushrooms he quipped ‘I’m up for that!’. They return for Blackened Blue Eyes and an extended and mind-blowing Sproston Green. Nice one, lads! see you again soon, I hope. 4.5 stars Ian Bell