Thursday 7th December. Bernard Fanning. The Garage, London. It’s been twelve years since Mr Fanning released the fantastic ‘Tea & Sympathy’ and ten years to the day that we saw Powderfinger at Hammersmith Odeon but we have never seen him solo. So expectation levels were high and we were not disappointed.
For those who don’t know Fanning led Aussie band Powderfinger from the late nineties to the late noughties. He has produced several solo albums in the years that followed which brings us here tonight.
It’s the first of two shows at the Garage and certainly tonight it’s sold out. Over here for the first time in a couple of years in support of new album ‘Brutal Dawn’ it’s not the classic play most of the new album and throw in a few oldies. Whilst there are two or three from the new album tonight, the set is chocked full of oldies especially from the aforementioned ‘T&S’ along with covers celebrating the music of the recently departed greats such as Bowie, Prince and Tom Petty and a bit of Powderfinger too. It’s a fans treat and would be difficult to have picked a better set.
It’s a mixture of electric, acoustic, solo and with the excellent band and the evening has a lovely ebb and flow. The quiet acoustic moments are subtle and moving but it’s when the band kick in with Fanning trading up to electric guitar that the place really rocks harking back to his Powderfinger days.
The obvious highlight is one of my favourite songs of the past 15 years ‘Wish you well’ but tonight even that might have been topped by a stunning electric cacophony encore of ‘Which Way Home’ seguing into War Pigs/Iron Man/Fame. Wow, just wow.
Quite fitting that we started the year with Sabbath at the O2 and we end it with a bit of Sabbath too.
A top night and ‘till the next time, keep on rockin y’all
For those who don’t know Fanning led Aussie band Powderfinger from the late nineties to the late noughties. He has produced several solo albums in the years that followed which brings us here tonight.
It’s the first of two shows at the Garage and certainly tonight it’s sold out. Over here for the first time in a couple of years in support of new album ‘Brutal Dawn’ it’s not the classic play most of the new album and throw in a few oldies. Whilst there are two or three from the new album tonight, the set is chocked full of oldies especially from the aforementioned ‘T&S’ along with covers celebrating the music of the recently departed greats such as Bowie, Prince and Tom Petty and a bit of Powderfinger too. It’s a fans treat and would be difficult to have picked a better set.
It’s a mixture of electric, acoustic, solo and with the excellent band and the evening has a lovely ebb and flow. The quiet acoustic moments are subtle and moving but it’s when the band kick in with Fanning trading up to electric guitar that the place really rocks harking back to his Powderfinger days.
The obvious highlight is one of my favourite songs of the past 15 years ‘Wish you well’ but tonight even that might have been topped by a stunning electric cacophony encore of ‘Which Way Home’ seguing into War Pigs/Iron Man/Fame. Wow, just wow.
Quite fitting that we started the year with Sabbath at the O2 and we end it with a bit of Sabbath too.
A top night and ‘till the next time, keep on rockin y’all
