Tim Rogers & Tex Perkins – Bar Academy Islington

A packed Australian-centric crowd greeted Tim Rogers and Tex Perkins at the Bar Academy for their early Saturday night show. And although the two stools and two acoustic guitars set-up on stage might have had you thinking this would be a night of two Australian music icons strumming through their hits – you would have been pretty disappointed as the set kicked off with, and for the most part was comprised of, material from the pairs recently recorded ‘My Better Half’ album.

It’s an interesting collaboration that they still seem to be coming to terms with – from the sketchy harmonising on opener “Someone Above” to trading competing verses on “Semi-Auto-Duo-Bio”.

They even poked fun at the work-in-progress nature of their collaboration, with “Half Of Nothing” trialling closing harmonies in the style of The Eagles (MOR west-coast rock), The Bee Gees (campy high disco) and finally Kiss (an impromptu run-through “Beth”). Their new material is clearly established in a roots/blues vein and, on initial hearing, “Everybody Hates You When You’re Popular” stuck me as one of the stand outs.

Considering Tim Rogers is often cited as one of Australia’s finest contemporary songwriters (something I subscribe to) – it’s surprising the Tex and Tim album features 3 covers – all of which were given an airing tonight. Their flamenco style reading of Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose” was pretty catchy – although I’m not sure it would stand up well to repeat listening.

After featuring close to two-thirds of their new album – the pair did delve into their respective back-catalogues for some unexpected, and a couple of fairly obvious, selections.

The sombre “Whenever It Snows” and “Paycheque” came from ‘All Is Forgiven”, the second Tex, Don & Charlie album. While from last years Tim Rogers & The Temperance Union double-header ‘Dirty Ron/Ghost Songs’, we got “Ghost Songs” with Tex more than capably taking on the Missy Higgins harmonies from the record.

One of the highlights of the night was You Am I’s “Damage”, quickly followed by “Can’t Say No” from The Beasts Of Bourbon’s ‘The Low Road’ – both of which worked well in the acoustic format.

The main set closed with the two other covers from ‘Half Of Me’; Kiss’s “Come On and Love Me” with Tex doing an impressive Gene Simmons impression (his tongue reaches the end of his chin!) and Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s The Night”. The latter a little too cabaret for my liking with Tex exaggerating the lyrics for comic effect.

Tim Rogers returned solo for the first encore, playing a touching ‘Dinosaurs’, which sounded like one of the highlights from the Tex & Tim album, dedicated to his 5 ½ year old daughter Ruby. Tex re-joined him and took lead-vocals for a great run-through The Cruel Sea’s “This Is Not The Way Home”, before finishing the encore with a fantastic verse-trading version of “Heavy Heart”.

Tex and Tim returned, perhaps ill-advisedly, for a second encore with “Cunnalingus” a mock tudor-style ballad (and unlisted final track on their new album) in the style of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Sir Robin minstrels (“it’s a mystery where the ancient art comes from / you use you lips and your mouth and your tongue”) and although it seemed to be well received by the crowd - personally I would have preferred things to end on the musical high of ‘Heavy Heart’, rather than end on a low-brow comedy note.... although it was Saturday night.