Church played acoustic at the Metro in Sydney on 11/8/95
Review from Drum Media
by James Compton

No matter how hard he tries, it's nigh on impossible for Steve Kilbey not to sound condescending. Here's a guy who has written so many great songs which convey his emotions, and yet he has never found it easy to give over, humble like, when in front of an audience. To go on calling this facet of his creative mileau The Church bespeaks a possessive ego in itself. Not that tonight's gig was a complete travesty as such, because both Kilbey and Willson-Piper were two corners of the original edifice. But to see them up there with 12 string guitars, trying to make magic out of what was essentially a buskers' night out was at times excrutiating. Like a fellow punter said when exitting the gig: "I haven't yawned so much since the last Church gig" and that was three years ago.

The Church were always a tad precious with their lyrics, never holding back in their quest for a medieval couplet, a symbolic allusion. But what made this epic approach so believable was the musical counterpart. Lush guitar soundscapes, a textured rhythm section, and in later years, more focus on keyboard atmospherics - particularly on last year's Sometime Anywhere set.

Tonight, when the duo played some vintage old stuff - and they were classics - like Almost With you, Myrrh, Tristesse, Under The Milky Way - it was hard not to look in the shadows for the ghosts of Peter Koppes and Richard Ploog. Even though Ploog shuffled off to be replaced by former Patti Smith cohort Jay Dee Daugherty a long while ago, his touch on the skins, along with Koppes' trademark guitar sound, were missed.

That original lineup for me, and perhaps many others as well, *was* The Church. Tonight the most amazing thing was that the crowd applauded so heartily and let the pair get away with what was a pretty flaccid presentation. Such a warm response was in essence a tribute to the songs themselves., the fact that they stand up so well in such sparse arrangement. Kilbey and Willison-Piper - who for all his dexterity on the fretboard is no Paco Pena - are not the most engaging of performers, but there were moments where the charisma, the mystery , the fairytale flame that burnt near the altar were all still there. But the priests had grown fat and indulgent and the temple was overgrown.

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