The Tea Party @ Palais Theatre Review

The Tea Party are no strangers to our shores.

They have visited Australia at least fourteen times now and I’ve seen a good three of their shows, but never before did I find the guys as aggressive as they were on Sunday night (12th October) at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne.

At first I thought it was the sound mix and the room giving off a particularly solid edge, but after watching Jeff Martin for a while I could definitely perceive an intensity which resonated throughout the infamous Palais Theatre's walls — unlike any other gig I'd heard in that venue.

I have fond memories of a show in Brisbane during which each musician in The Tea Party played a combination of about 25 different instruments, mostly in a seated position. In contrast, Sunday night's show was more rock than ever. After the second song Jeff announced: "This is a fucking rock concert — stand the fuck up!”, after which the crowd naturally obliged as the band plunged into their next song, ’The Black Sea’, and the hall's echoes began to ricochet off the back wall.

Image © Carl Neumann

The three-piece Canadian outfit played all of their best tracks, launching with ‘Splendor Solis’ and ‘The Edges Of Twilight’, as well as later submissions such as ‘Transmission' and, of course, their newest and very alluring album, ‘The Ocean At The End’.

Jeff’s usual between-song banter was a nice counter-weight to his solemn, oh-so-serious lyrics. "I’ve met a lot of you and it seams that many of you have been making babies to The Tea Party songs. I don’t recommend that you sing this next song to your babies, as it’s a bit misleading,” quirked Jeff, as they rolled into ‘Lullaby’.

Image © Carl Neumann

And Jeff Burrows — the drummer — is one cool cat. He’s a very confident and smooth musician, always keeping one eye on the frontman and the other on Stuart Chatwood, their bassist and keyboardist.

The Tea Party have a lot of tricky, little licks and sudden changes that makes their unique sound much more than simply rock, and the technicality in Burrows’ drumming brings out their big sound even more.

This was the fourth time I've seen The Tea Party, and I will definitely see them again the next time they come — for a fifth.

Image © Carl Neumann

Song list:

1. ‘The L.O.C.’
2. ‘The Bazaar’
3. ‘The Black Sea’
4. ‘Psychopomp’
5. ‘Fire In The Head’
6. ‘Lullaby’
7. ‘Water's On Fire’
8. ‘Save Me / The Maker’
9. ‘The Ocean At The End’
10. ‘Temptation / Transmission’

Encore:

11. ‘Turn the Lamp Down Low / The Cass Corridor’
12. ‘Sister Awake / Pulse’