Review: Illuminate - Avalanches deliver a symphonic masterclass

It was cancelled twice by Covid, but Wednesday night’s collaboration between The Avalanches and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was worth waiting for writes Nathan Davies.

The Avalanches: Since I Left You, Live

with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Adelaide Entertainment Centre, March 18

SINCE I Left You was a milestone of Australian music, a psychedelic masterpiece created from more than 3000 samples which took listeners on a journey through both inner and outer space.

The Melbourne outfit cut together snippets of orchestral pieces, 1950s B movies, old sit-coms and seventies funk and disco to create a record unlike anything that came before it.

It was beautifully coherent despite the disparate nature of its creation, and it garnered critical acclaim and commercial success across the globe upon its release in late 2000.

Notoriously grumpy British tastemakers NME hailed it as “a joyous, kaleidoscopic masterpiece of sun-kissed disco-pop”. On the other side of the Atlantic, the equally grumpy Pitchfork said it “sounded like nothing else”.

To deconstruct SILY, to unravel it and back-engineer it into something that can be played by a full symphony orchestra must have been a daunting prospect, but it was one that was embraced by the remaining Avalanches in Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi and our very own ASO, and it was a remarkable success.

The Avalanches and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Picture: Jiayuan Liang and Xplorer Studio

Success that was a long time coming. Originally slated as a centrepiece performance of last year’s Illuminate festival, the performance was twice cancelled by Covid before Wednesday night’s show.

“We’ve been working with conductor Nick Buc and sending him bits and pieces so he can get his head around how they will work as orchestral parts and he’s been sending us back demos of how that’s going to sound and it’s just going to be awesome,” Di Blasi told The Advertiser.

“I honestly think it’s going to make me cry. I feel it will be quite overwhelming. If we get this balance right I think it will be huge.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

Where some performances that combine popular artists and symphonies can feel a little disjointed, Wednesday night’s performance meshed beautifully. It was testament to the hard work that’s been put in on both sides.

Tracks were reworked, extended and given new life and lushness by the ASO, with highlights including Radio – as much of a banger today as it was 22 years ago – the wonderfully eccentric Frontier Psychiatrist, with its mildly disturbing yet hilarious film clip playing on the big screens, and an extended Extra Kings outro complete with wonderfully lush visuals.

Being an Illuminate performance, the lighting and video effects were very much on point.

This is a show that should go on the road and get a recording in its own right – it would be a shame if this was one-off performance.

A shout out as well to Adelaide’s own Electric Fields who did a stellar job of opening the night with their unique APY Lands meets inner-city disco sonic creations.
To hear an ancient songline passed down to singer Zaachariaha Fielding from his elders ring out across the AEC is something special indeed.

Review: A Hot Night with Abbie Chatfield at the Arkaba Hotel in Adelaide

Ah, the Arkaba Hotel, or, specifically, the Top of the Ark, where yours truly danced around her handbag to Let’s Talk About Sex while having an Orgasm (cocktail) back in the early 1990s.

Salt-N-Pepper had nothing on Abbie Chatfield and Co.

But before we go there, a quick word about the venue.

Do you remember Adelaide’s most legendary nightclubs?

Yes, some would say it’s a throwback that has seen better days, but the Top of the Ark was the perfect venue for A Hot Night with Abbie Chatfield on May 14.

A Hot Night is staged like a TV talk show (with cocktails and pre-mixed alcoholic bevvies), featuring different guests in each city and signers.

The Top of the Ark’s curved staggered seating arrangement – in which everyone in the audience had a clear view of the stage and the signers – added to the feeling that we were in a bubble.

I write added because Chatfield and her guests created a safe, inclusive space from the get-go, when Jimi The Kween got the party started with Queen’s I Want to Break Free.

When Chatfield took to the stage, the crowd – of mostly 18 to 30-something women, who are all obviously switched on to her It’s A Lot podcast – went off.

Personable and instantly relatable, Chatfield knows how to read an audience. She loved that we had the same “small town energy” as Brisbane and the Gold Coast (her next stops on the tour), where you’ll find “private school boys doing stupid s***”.

And we loved her back. She got us.

Ellie Sedgwick, Abbie Chatfield, Rowdie Walden and Jimi Kween at The Arkaba Picture: K Photographer by Karina

Her first guest was Ellie Sedgwick, the founder of Comfortable in My Skin.

The two talked about the ins and outs of their sharing-and-caring friendship, Chatfield’s lover Konrad Bien-Stephens and sex lives, and how belly buttons aren’t the only part of the female anatomy which can be an innie or outie.

Sedgwick shared her deeply personal story. It had all the feels and a happy ending because the “vulva photographer” now empowers other women – by showing them how to not only accept, but love, their private parts.

Chatfield and Sedgwick also touched on fan etiquette (tip: look with your eyes, not with your hands), ways to deal with paparazzi and the “two degrees of f***eration” amongst 25 to 35-year-olds in a small town.

The s***s and giggles and serious banter continued when Chatfield introduced her second guest, Rowdie Walden, of Sex Engine Search fame, introducing herself as his “second best friend”.

Walden, who had arrived in Adelaide the day before, talked up the thrills and spills – and the downers (in the nicest and funniest possible way) – of his trip thus far.

Introducing Chatfield to our local “delicacy” Fruchocs (which she savoured for the rest of the show), he laughed off how he’d given up on the local scene on Grindr and settled for a day trip to our German village: “If you want a big sausage, you’ve got to go to Hahndorf”.

Abbie Chatfield tries the Fruchocs while chatting to Rowdie Walden. Picture: K Photographer by Karina

Walden also gave us the exclusive drop on the announcement of his new podcast, Look at Moi, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Kath & Kim.

There was also crowd participation and prizes.

The buzz in the air before each interaction with an audience member was electric.

It was the 100 per cent total opposite of the feeling “high school you” got when you were dreading you would be the one called up to deliver your two-minute talk to the class.

Everyone who had put their hand up, or rather, sent an email or text, was hoping, and more than happy, to be part of the action.

A Hot Night with Abbie Chatfield lived up to the hype and some. Equal parts entertaining, informative and inspiring – thanks to its warm, generous and hilarious hostess and guests – it was a night to remember.

Adelaide only had one show on the national tour. And we only had ourselves to blame. As is often the way with ticket sales here, we were late to the party.

As Chatfield said, we could have had two shows in the touring schedule, but “no one wanted the tickets, until suddenly you all did”.

We know for next time – when the Fruchocs will be on us.

- Anna Vlach