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The Cruel Sea are playing a small run of shows to coincide with the Queenscliff Music Festival and Golden Days Festival. We haven't seen them do too many shows in the last five years, so it's good to have them all back together on stage again after heading off in all directions for their side projects.
The guys start out with an instrumental song, before Tex arrives to sing "It’s Alright (Cos She Loves Me)". Dressed in a white suit jacket and black suit pants, he joked they didn't discuss their outfits and the band had come along in casual. He said he was also casual, but unlike the bass player who had been gardening, he had been at the casino.
Keeping in the casual theme the band were quite subdued until over halfway through, with Tex alternately sipping on a flourescent orange cocktail or having a little boogie over by the drum kit. Once they launched into "Delivery Man" things perked up a bit and we had the old band back again.
"Better get a lawyer" was followed by "Honeymoon is over" - introduced as "this won the song of the year in [pause] 19 fucking 93".
They come back for an encore and play three instrumental songs, including "Orleans Stomp" from the Honeymoon is Over album. Tex returns to whistle through the last instro song. The ending is an energeticly inspired version of "Cocaine" (from their 2001 album "Where's the Smoke", not the JJ Cale song) which included some excellent pogoing across the stage by Tex, who managed to involve everyone else, even Rumour (on guitar) who was playing his solo at the time.
Even though it took the boys a while to get warmed up, it's clear that they still have the energy to do a killer live gig when they want to.
