Icecream Hands- John Curtin Hotel

After missing last year's 15th anniversary performance of their fantastic album Sweeter Than The Radio, I was really happy when Icecream Hands announced they were playing a one off show at the John Curtin Hotel doing highlights from all five of their albums. Danny, Ruth and I started our evening downstairs having dinner at Bluebonnet Barbecue (look out for a review on Eagle vs Roo shortly) before heading upstairs to the bandroom where we caught the last song by opening act Luke Sinclair of Raised By Eagles.

For tonight's special show Charles Jenkins, Douglas Lee Robertson and Derek G Smiley were joined by the talented Davey Lane (You Am I) on lead guitar. They started their set with "The Obvious Boy" (which includes a shout out to California). Despite not having listened to these Icecream Hands albums for a while I was impressed that I managed to remember most of the lyrics to the songs they played. Highlights for me during their hour and a half set included "Come Along," "Why'd You Have To Leave Me This Way?," "Spiritlevel Windowsill," "Nipple" and "Yellow & Blue." It was so great to hear those jangly guitars and harmonies live again. We even got a couple of covers in the encore with Davey leading a version of The Beatles "A Hard Day's Night" and a fantastic cover of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging." I am hopeful that we will get treated to more of these one off shows in the future.