The Beautiful Girls in Brisbane (12 December 07)

22 December 2007 by Richard Wilson

The Beautiful Girls recently hit the road again for one last tour of 2007 in support of their Ziggurats album. Playing to a near capacity crowd at Brisbane's The Tivoli, the band played a set filled with the band's eclectic dub/reggae/acoustic/rock sounds.

The show opened with Gold Coast locals Roger That playing to a fairly sizeable crowd, their reggae/rock grooves setting the tone for the night. Throughout the half-hour set they touched on many genres from heavy rock to roots and hip hop, with a consistent dub sound throughout held together with outstanding lead guitar. Clearly stoked to be playing such a big gig, singer Jesse Bailey commented - as many bands do on the Tivoli stage - that it's one of the fanciest rooms they'd ever played.

From Boston, USA, State Radio played their second last show of their tour in support of The Beautiful Girls, received warmly by a crowd eagerly awaiting the headline act. The trio did kept the reggae sound close to the core of their set, with a melancholic indie rock sound thrown over the top for good measure. From the crowd's response, I'm sure we'll be seeing and hearing more from the eclectic State Radio in this country.

By the time The Beautiful Girls came on stage The Tivoli was looking full upstairs and down; excitement grew in the audience until the lights came on to Learn Yourself, kick-starting what was to be a setlist filled with crowd pleasers, both old and new. Following this up with Periscopes, Mat McHugh stuck with the acoustic guitar for the first handful of songs, including Johnny Clegg's Dela, with a simple yet surprisingly epic backing of drums and keys.

With keyboard, trumpet and saxophone in tow, the band was able to flex their genre-bending muscles, including the mariachi sounds of Spanish Town in the acoustic set. As the set went on the horns were used to their fullest as TBG delved into the dub reggae sounds of their second album We're Already Gone. A re-imagining of Blackbird into a horns-filled dub piece gave a new perspective on one of the band's first radio hits.

Not to leave out the rock-infused sounds of Ziggurats, Royalty, UB40's Bring Me Your Cup and radio favourite I Thought About You all had the crowd wanting more. Just off the back of a tour of the USA (in support of State Radio), the tour's namesake, Under A Southern Sky came out in all its 80s-rock-reggae-fusion glory.

As the temperature heats up and you realise that the summer festivals are just around the corner, there's perhaps nothing more perfect than the chilled reggae rock sounds of The Beautiful Girls. Going by the impressive turnout so close to Christmas, I think the bulk of the crowd agrees with me.

Capping off the diverse show with La Mar, it's not hard to see why The Beautiful Girls are as widely respected as they are within the scene.

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