Deborah Conway relives classic Bitch Epic and delivers a newborn

Back in 1993 Deborah Conway released her album Bitch Epic, marking the start of a musical and life partnership with guitarist Willy Zygier, and now they’re reliving it.

Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier performed the classic album Bitch Epic with their new one, Words of Men, for Vivid at the Opera House Studio.

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Its 12 powerful songs and “out there” cover showing a topless Conway smeared in Nutella eating a cream sponge immediately resonated with a new band of fans, making it a worthy successor to her debut solo album String of Pearls Band two years earlier.

To celebrate its silver anniversary, and the release of their latest collaboration Words of Men, Conway and Zygier played two shows at the Sydney Opera House’s Studio.

The only disappointing thing about the opening night was the number of empty spaces in the 300-seater room, a fact Conway commented on with a wry smile when she walked out on stage.

Still and all the trademark energy, sass, humour and tight musicianship of a Conway show were undimmed from the insistent swing of Fallen Star, the opening track from Words of Men, to the barnstorming encore Goldfinger, with Conway channelling Shirley Bassey to perfection.

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Zygier in his striped zoot suit prowled the stage with a wicked grin on his face harmonising and throwing in some licks and riffs on his acoustic guitar.

Keyboard player Hugh Blanes added some colours and textures from his seemingly endless palette, with one hand on the Steinway and the other on a synthesiser, occasionally picking up a piano accordion for one of Conway’s ballads.

The driving bass of Simon Starr — acoustic upright for the first set and electric for the Epic songs — and the on-point drumming of Niko Schauble were the anchor as the band put plenty of air around Conway’s powerful vocals. Her face animated and often wreathed in smiles, she is a force of nature and still in top form vocally, backed by Zygier’s harmonies and their daughter Syd’s on some numbers.

Thank you. You have made an old lady very happy!

And if the music hasn’t dimmed, neither has the onstage banter. Talking about her big hit Only The Beginning from String of Pearls, which was played everywhere you went on the radio, Conway said they had to come up with a way of getting some airplay for something from the past 27 years of her work.

Hence Don’t You Forget Me, which celebrates growing old, quotes it briefly.

“I imagined the room filled with cigarette lighters while I was singing it,” she told her audience, many of whom held up their iPhones.

“Thank you,” she told them. “You have made an old lady very happy!”

DETAILS

● CONCERT: Deborah Conway

● WHERE: The Studio, Sydney Opera House

● WHEN: Friday, June 7