When the lead single from that album, Under The Milky Way, came out I was in Year 7 and living in Albany. Watching RAGE on a Saturday morning was a regular ritual for me, and so was listening to Take 40 Australia on the radio with Barry Bissell. I remember the video clip, but I wasn't too enamoured with the song. It wasn't the usual catchy Beatlesque pop radio fodder I preferred at the time. Their compilation album Hindsight 1980-1987 had also been released around the same time, and after Under The Milky Way was played on Take 40 one week, Barry mentioned it. He aired a snippet of The Unguarded Moment, which I liked immediately. It sounded vaguely familiar as well, so I must have heard it when I was a younger. Possibly on the radio, which was the style at the time. During another Take 40 broadcast, Barry played the next single from the Starfish album, Reptile, which I kinda liked.
The first major impact The Church had on me was Metropolis, from their next album Gold Afternoon Fix, which was released in 1990. I really fell for the song in a big way after seeing the film clip. I even bought it on cassingle! Remember them? Cassingle is short for cassette single, if you're too young to know (that might not be enough of an explanation).
Anyway, I was aware of who The Church were for many years, but never really delved into their music too deeply. While I was working at Southern Sound, a music store in Albany, during the mid nineties, I bought a CD compilation of theirs called Almost Yesterday 1981-1990. It was a fairly good overview of that time period and had everything on it that you'd expect. I don't think I listened to it in any great detail, but I was happy to have The Unguarded Moment and Metropolis on CD, if nothing else. Over the years I came to appreciate Under The Milky Way for the masterpiece that is, as well as other great songs of theirs like Almost With You, When You Were Mine and Into My Hands.
Fast forward to December 2012 - Rhona and I attended a concert in Kings Park for the A Day on the Green series. On the bill were The Models, The Church, Devo and Simple Minds. We arrived just as The Models were finishing sadly, but we picked out a great spot and were ready for The Church to start. I was very impressed by their forty-minute, eight-song set, although they didn't play The Unguarded Moment. I was particularly taken by On Angel Street, and assumed that they had played other tracks from their 2009 album Untitled #23 as well. After the show I got hold of a copy of Untitled #23, but didn't recognise anything else from their show. I was keen to have a listen to it ever since I saw it got a five star review in Rolling Stone magazine. Anyway, I did warm to the rest of the album and discovered that they had played other numbers from a couple of their more recent efforts.
Move forward through time again to now(ish) and I found myself thinking of that set The Church played that day on the green in December 2012. After finding the list of songs they played on setlist.fm (which I may or may not have created) I made up a playlist on my iPod. Bizarrely, a few days later, The Church announce a new album and a tour! What perfect timing to be going down the rabbit hole!
So, I made myself a bit of a plan. The day the new album was released was also the day the tickets went on sale for the tour. I couldn't go to the Friday show at The Rosemount Hotel (Fri 17th Nov) because I had a gig at Rosie O'Grady's that night with the Wesleys. However, The Church were playing at the Dunsborough Tavern on the Saturday (18th Nov). I asked Rhones how she felt about taking a trip down south to see The Church and she was keen. Always up for a roadtrip, she.
The day before the tickets went on sale, I was asked if I was available to do a gig in Darwin on Sat 18th Nov. Gah! I reluctantly agreed to do the gig if it came off. I hadn't lost all hope at seeing them though, as the gig was pretty tenuous, so I went to try and find a copy of The Church's new album, Man Woman Life Death Infinity. My search proved fruitless and I resigned myself to the fact that I'd probably be gigging in Darwin rather than going down to Dunsborough.
The timing of all this has been too perfect. How often do you start to develop a serious interest in a band or artist just they release a new album and announce a tour? I've been working my way through their old albums, paying particular attention to The Blurred Crusade and Starfish. I've listened to Almost Yesterday 1981-1990 a lot as well, getting familiar with those lesser played tracks. I found an article on the gig that The Church performed at South By Southwest in September this year, which included a detailed setlist. I made that up as an iPod playlist too! He he he... Sadly, they didn't include anything from The Blurred Crusade album in their set, but that may have been because they recently toured the record in its entirety.
I've been quite taken with Another Century from Man Woman Life Death Infinity and Day 5 off 2006's Uninvited, Like The Clouds album. I'm really excited by what they might play in Dunsborough, and I'm preparing myself by listening to a lot of their stuff. Quite a large rabbit hole to go down...MWLDI is their 25th album! Looking forward to seeing Ian Haug (ex-Powderfinger) in the line up too.
I'll close this off by naming five songs I REALLY hope they play:
1. The Unguarded Moment
2. You Took
3. Metropolis
4. Myrrh
5. On Angel Street
Oh, and Almost With You! And Day 5! And Reptile! Here's hoping, huh?
