Josh Pyke Memories & Dust @ Capitol
w/ Kyle Lionhart
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Although it wasn’t a sold out show, the bottom level of Capitol had a decent number of people there to see the opening act Kyle Lionhart on Saturday night and it wasn’t long before he had the audience almost completely captivated and laughing along with him – especially as he “just forgot my own lyrics… I was just thinking about death metal bands!” (To be fair…there was a death metal band playing next door that almost drowned out all other sounds so you couldn’t really blame him).
His set-list included his hits Call Back Home, Sweet Girl, Moving Forward and Slow Sips. Lionhart asked the audience if “anyone in Perth seen me before? Oh wow! 4 ½ people!” and then made the mistake of asking for any requests. “On My Own… I want to. I mean – I really want to… what’s the first lyric? You guys have put me in a tight spot here!” After a few false starts however, he nailed it. He ended the set with Sleep By Rivers and Compromise.
Kyle Lionhart is a very talented song-writer with a beautiful voice and combined with his self-deprecating humour, he gained a lot of new fans. Which is great as he is coming back in December.
By the time the man of the hour stepped out on stage, Mr Josh Pyke, Capitol was crowded and it was hard to move around at his last show before a widely reported hiatus. His first set was the Memories & Dust album and everyone there was loving hearing the old songs again and some such as Covers Are Thrown that Pyke told us “We’ve never played live up until this tour and I don’t know why. I actually really like it. I had to look it up online….” as the audience laughed.
“I thought it would be a really big statement if we didn’t play this song so we are going to go straight onto Buttons,” Pyke said eight tracks in, right before long-standing favourite Middle of the Hill, and the crowd groaned in disbelief. He was joking of course, and in good humour all night. He didn’t keep everyone waiting too long before playing the song that “kicked the doors down” for him.
Pyke took the opportunity to thank the band for making his life so much more pleasurable on the road and broke into a rendition of Boyz II Men… almost successfully, as he did need prompting on the lines.
After finishing Memories, Pyke and the band stepped off stage for a quick break before coming back on to perform more of Pyke’s hits from over the years including The Lighthouse Song, Private Education, The Summer and The Beginning and the End of Everything.
“Not just saying this but I think this is the best crowd. When I was imagining this, I was imagining a crowd like you.” he said. He also said that he would not be doing an encore so everyone should just pretend that he had walked off. “Thank you so much to all of those that have ever come to one of my shows. I had no idea I could do this as a full time job. I’ll be back in a couple of years!” as he ended with Make You Happy.
And indeed, over the years, Josh Pyke has made many a person happy with his talent, his story telling and his brilliant humour. While everyone will be sad to see him go, we all look forward to his eventual return after a much deserved break. So thank YOU Josh for all the great memories over the years.
Words & pics by
KAREN LOWE
