Ed Kuepper continues to innovate.
In the last few years, Kuepper has covered and reinterpreted the Saints as the Aints! live and on record, reinterpreting his back catalogue live with Jim White and via his collaborative work with the Alister Spence Trio, which has informed current performances of his solo material billed as The Exploding Universe of Ed Kuepper.Alister Spence plays the opening set tonight (15 September) at The Gov in Adelaide, although not before Ed cameos as the self-proclaimed "MC" for the evening and quips: "A man who needs no introduction, so I won't give him one."
It was a more than fitting beginning to the evening, a precursory three-song set of solo piano drawn from the back catalogue of Alister's eponymous trio consisting of the lengthy 'Luminescence', 'Threading The Maze' and 'Radium', songs that some might categorise as jazz although that description would be unfairly limiting.
While an earlier preview of the seemingly truncated set list for The Exploding Universe taped to the stage may have at first appeared slightly disappointing with regard to the number of songs, the latter performance of stretched-out songs commencing with the opening salvo of 'The King Of Vice' proved otherwise.
This early in the set, Ed appears to be taking cues from his improvisational work with the Alister Spence Trio (aka Asteroid Ekosystem). In contrast to the lengthy opening song, there was the brief energetic rocker 'Not A Soul Around' before the paced, grinding 'Liddle Fiddle'.
It's apparent that each song is its own thing, individual but complementary; 'Sea Air' for example, being reminiscent of The Go-Betweens while later 'All Of These Things' seems almost skeletal in comparison to some of the more prominent, muscular performances.
'Electrical Storm' is charged and apocalyptic with the band channelling Neil Young and Crazy Horse, dramatically increasing in pace in the rapid-fire second half before slowing down with the addition of trumpet by Eamon Dilworth.
There is respite in the pairing of the late-night jazz of 'Rainy Night' and then 'Spartan Spiritual' further demonstrating an increasingly varied set.
The piercing pub-rock version of 'Honey Steals Gold' is pulsing and bouncy, instrumentally stretched out of recognition to the extent that the minimal vocals seem almost an afterthought.
The elongated nature of the song in this context might suggest the tour being promoted as best of performances of the recently reissued 'Electrical Storm' and 'Honey Steals Gold' LPs refers not to the albums as a whole, but simply to extended workouts of the title songs of those corresponding albums.
In the latter part of the set, Ed more than makes up for having had very little stage banter when he finally introduces the band, and inexplicably he does it twice, before and after a performance of 'Also Sprach The King Of Euro-Disco', which at times started to sound like the opening of the Byrds' 'Eight Miles High'.
Apart from the aforementioned Eamon Dilworth on trumpet and Alister Spence – now properly introduced with the comment: "You may have seen him earlier doing a spot of busking." – there is the "glue" of Sunnyboys' Peter Oxley on bass and one of Ed's long-term collaborators "Exclamation Mark" Dawson on drums.
'Everything I've Got Belongs to You' contains more than an element of mutual appreciation as the audience sings along with Ed, a woman down front attempting but failing to take the song into gospel territory by herself, before this penultimate song is followed by an encore consisting of a faithful rendition of 'The Way I Made You Feel'.
He may now look like your grandpa, but Ed has barely lost any of the youthful exuberance that he has displayed since his early days with The Saints.
While only a few of the songs performed could be described as close to the recorded versions amongst the meandering title tracks and others, these are versions of those songs it would be regretful not to experience when given the opportunity.
