TLC at Enmore Theatre, Sydney, June 09: Concert review

THE 90s R&B superstars were surprisingly unsentimental about their departed bandmate Left Eye in a hit-packed set at Sydney’s Enmore last night.

Pic of Tione "T-Boz Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas from band TLC at the four season

AS one of the highest-selling girl groups of all time, TLC would’ve likely been playing arenas on this, their first Australian tour, were it not for one tragic twist of fate — the death of the trio’s feisty rapper Lisa Left Eye Lopes in 2002, thereby derailing the group’s career for the better part of a decade.

Playing their second Sydney show in the more intimate confines of the Enmore Theatre, the group’s two surviving members — Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins, still sultry at 44, and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas, looking a decade younger than her 43 years — shone during a rapid-fire, hit-heavy set.

TLC: Girl power is ‘not getting naked’

The hits were largely played in chronological order, meaning that energy levels on the night mirrored their ascendant careers as the songs got better and better. In their heyday, they were an act with a lot of great songs — early hit Baby Baby Baby, Motown ballad Red Light Special, the future-funk of Silly Ho — and a handful of stone cold classics: Creep, No Scrubs, Waterfalls.

TLC during the ‘No Scrubs’ era - from left: Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, Chilli and T-Boz.

While it’s been 12 long years since Left Eye’s death, fans might’ve been surprised at Chilli and T-Boz’s unsentimental handling of their friend’s absence. The video montages playing on the screen behind the pair throughout the concert, showing moments from their most iconic clips, were edited so as to only include the duo.

In fact, it wasn’t until their second-last song — the forever-brilliant Waterfalls — that the pair even mentioned Left Eye by name.

Still, the concert ended on a sweet spot, as TLC sang their first new track in more than a decade, the acoustic R&B jam Meant To Be. Some 22 years after they first started, it seems there’s life in TLC yet.

TLC play Melbourne’s Palais Theatre on June 11, tickets through Ticketmaster, and Perth’s Metro City, tickets through Ticketek.

Originally published as TLC at Enmore Theatre, Sydney, June 09: Concert review