Savage Garden Concert Reviews
August 4, 1998: Ottawa, Canada: Congress Centre
"Garden partners Daniel Jones, left, and Darren Hayes provided
a high-octane and energetic set and they should be even better once they
build a larger repertoire of original material." photo by Patrick Doyle,
The Ottawa Citzen
From: Savage Garden short on material: Australian
hitmakers reach for filler in short concert
By Hilary McLaughlin, The Ottawa Citizen
Savage Garden opened their concert Tuesday at the
Congress Centre with Tears of Pearls, good drivin' stuff to whet the appetite,
and quickly moved into To the Moon and Back, another dance-beat number.
But the Australian duo did not have the stuff of
a full-concert set, despite their self-titled first album of 11 interesting
cuts.
As they started into filler material to make their
concert last a reasonable length, there was a frisson of ennui among what
was mostly a very young crowd.
Lead singer Darren Hayes and partner Daniel Jones
larked about with some Motown, for which both they and their principal
audience were too young, and presented a humorous sort of send-up piece
that seemed to gently tease the Spice Girls.
But why was Hayes prancing about the stage in an
incomprehensible imitation of Freddie Mercury combined with Elton John,
and ending up looking more like the lame Elvis who came second in the U.S.
Postal Service poll? He had some of Freddie's moves, but not his body,
not his music, not his voice.
When the group finally got to I Want You, there were
roars of approval, and it was far and away the best performance of the
night. The kids rushed the stage and got into it big time; it was, appropriately,
the official finale.
Obviously, there was more to come, and finally, they
delivered Truly Madly Deeply as an encore. It was less endearing than the
recorded version, and the addition of superfluous backup singers made the
song a tad anticlimactic.
I liked Darren and Daniel and their excellent band
for their high-octane, well-staged and exceptionally-lit performance. While
I don't think they covered Joan Osborne particularly well, and I couldn't
quite hear what sounded like a late Lennonish piece, I found some subtle
phrasing references to U2 fascinating, and, given that group's capacity
for reinvention of self, encouraging.
The duo's name, Savage Garden, comes from a novel
by Anne Rice. At first, listening to the gentle murmurings of Truly Madly
Deeply and I Want You on radio, it struck me as an ironic choice.
But a closer listen made me wonder.
The album is musically eclectic, from the distinctly
Euro-pop pulse of I Want You to the mainstream dance drive of Tears of
Pearls and Carry On Dancing. Santa Monica is a youthful, buoyant piece
of straight '80s pop. Lyrically, however, there is a darkish side to many
of the songs.
There are several songs on the album referring to
relationships that have not run the smooth course of true love. We're not
quite in Alanis Morissette territory, but the songs -- all written by Hayes
and Jones -- are more complex than those of most of the other young groups.
Savage Garden have expressed some concerns about
their relatively quick success. My only real reservation about them is
that they are touring before they have enough material to sustain a serious
concert.
They delivered a good performance Tuesday, but lost
their momentum for moments at a time with several songs that were unfamiliar
to their generally teen audience. However, another (good) album should
just about solve that dilemma.
Opening artist Billie Myers, a deep-voiced young
woman from England, delivered a strong, though not overwhelmingly original,
set of fairly hard-rockish songs. She was not devoid of charm, but did
not appear to leave her audience wishing for more than her 35-minute set.
photo from the Ottawa Sun
From: Savage Garden Party Hearty
By: Rick Overall, The Ottawa Sun
On disc, Savage Garden is one of the brightest new
lights in the pop music constellation. On stage, they're not there just
yet.
The Aussie duo of Darren Hayes on vocals and Daniel
Jones on keys and guitar produced a debut disc that's a spellbinding collection
of songs that evokes images of the very best of '80s Euro-pop combined
with the tasty soul that we'd get from Michael Jackson when he was actually
working studio magic.
Tuesday night, they brought this immaculate studio
conception to life in front of a couple of thousand fans at the Congress
Centre and the performance was surprising and disappointing in the same
breath.
Led by Hayes' gymnastic lead vocals, the group quickly
laid to rest any thought that they might just be studio babies.
They cracked the energy barrier straight off the
get-go and never let up during a fast-paced 75-minute set.
But for a band who's currency is deliciously concise
production, the badly blended sound mix of this show quickly scuttled the
possibility of this being a memorable evening.
But despite the obliterated vocals, Hayes rocked
out with a ferocity that paid homage to heroes like George Michael and
Simon LeBon. He was a man who prowled the stage with a vengeance that had
the wall of females up front in primo squeal mode.
In their own turn, the group was beefed up to a total
of seven -- including two powerful female backup singers.
And as a whole, the presentation had a maturity and
authority you don't often see with a band that's only just hit the record
stores.
The thing to most admire about this bunch was they've
really seemed to be able to replicate all the good aspects found within
the sound of Tears For Fears, Wham, Talk Talk, Duran Duran, Blamange, OMD
and Ultravox in a live package that also pulls heavily from the funky textures
of the likes of Prince -- witness the deadly groove of Break Me, Shake
Me and Carry On Dancing.
On the down side, the nasty mix married with the
shrill shrieks of delight from the crowd literally drowned out every significant
line uttered on I Want You, To The Moon And Back and to a lesser degree
the silky smooth closer Truly, Madly, Deeply.
Despite the flaws, the energy displayed proved that
there's cause to hope for a better show next time.
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