The Beautiful Girls - Coolongatta Hotel (Jan 16th, 2010)

Long-term Soulshine favourites The Beautiful Girls finished off their 09/10 Australian tour with a sold out show at the Coolongatta Hotel on Queensland’s Gold Coast. We were on the ground to see the progression of their sound.

The Beautiful Girls have never sat on their laurels. With their first two albums ‘Morning Sun’ and ‘Learn Yourself’ exploring the surf-folk genre highlighted by artists like Jack Johnson, Ben Harper and indeed themselves, a lot of attention was thrown their way. At no stage though, did the Beautiful Girls take comfort in that and continue to release that brand of music...something that Jack Johnson has found all too easy. Following that up with the reggae inspired ‘We’re Already Gone’ and the very stark change of Police-esque rock-reggae ‘Ziggurats,’ they had fast become barely recognisable from their initial iteration. So of course, it comes with much interest to see what will come next from a band that are fast becoming one of Australia’s favourite bands…and what better way to do that then to catch the very end of their latest Australian tour; metres from the beach no less.

A few tracks into the gig and the Beautiful Girls had already demonstrated what to expect from their upcoming album. The reggae roots explored on earlier albums were expanded into a dancehall/dub tweak, something that manages to merge the new and old stuff with a unique atmosphere of echoes, guitars and keys. The similarities to the Police are again very prevalent, but in a much less obvious way to that of ‘Ziggurats.’ The set crossed the duration of their catalogue, playing commercial favourites like ‘I Thought About You’ and ‘Under a Southern Sky’ to a huge response from the stiletto and cocktail dress Gold Coast crowd and older classics like ‘La Mar’ to a huge response from those who are actually old enough to enter a licensed premises in 2010. With the debut of a few new tracks including latest single ‘Don’t Wait,’ there was something in there to satisfy everyone. The band was as tight as I’d ever seen them, the tunes were great and Mat McHugh is still playing around with short, introductory covers by anyone from Phil Collins to Paul Simon, an effect that’s been one of my favourite aspects of a Beautiful Girls gig since I first saw them.

With a huge evolution in sound over the past decade, a line-up change and a new demographic, many bands would now be touring as a husk of their former selves. It’s an absolute credit to the ability of the both the band (in the form of Paulie B and Bruce Braybrooke) and the songwriting prowess of Mat McHugh that they can churn out this musical product with so much content in their discography. Their influences on each other are no doubt massive and the effect that has had on the band has produced a sound that almost nobody would have predicted back in 2003.

Taking a break for the next few months, presumably to piece together their fifth studio album, the band has no doubt ensured that what is to come is something to get excited about…something that we’ll most definitely keep you informed about if you stay in touch with the front page…not that we’re trying to con you into anything…

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