Review: Dirty Three at Fremantle Passenger Terminal

Dirty Three at Fremantle Passenger Terminal
w/ Eleanor Jawurlngali
Saturday, June 23, 2024

Certain bands have a reputation for being amazing live, where a special group of musicians become greater than the sum of their parts and true synergy is achieved. That’s not to say Dirty Three’s recorded material isn’t brilliant, but live, they take things to another level entirely. A fully immersive experience, their instrumental waves of emotion ebb and flow with such ferocious intensity, it’s hard not to get swept up in it. And on Saturday night, they reminded everyone why they have earned a reputation for being one of the finest live acts this country has ever produced.

Since bursting onto the scene out of Melbourne in the mid-90s, Dirty Three’s performances are the stuff of legend, but have been somewhat rare occurrences since the 90s. The band had only released two albums since then, with 2005’s Cinder and 2012’s Toward the Low Sun, which was the last time they did a national tour. With Warren Ellis increasingly busy as Nick Cave’s right-hand man in The Bad Seeds, as well as his film scoring partner, you can understand why. But the incredible trio of Ellis on violin and keyboards, Jim White on drums, and Mick Turner on guitar have re-emerged this year with a new album called Love Changes Everything and a tour.

Despite a bit of a slow start to their set and a rather frustrating view and vibe-limiting venue, it didn’t take long before they had conquered the crowd and drawn them under their spell, taking us on a journey for two and a half hours. An impressive feat for an instrumental three piece, fronted by a classically trained, charismatic violin virtuoso madman, who guided us on an epic, winding, rollercoaster of emotion as they jammed out songs from across their illustrious career.

The Fremantle Passenger Terminal was a bit of a legendary venue for a while back in the mid-90s, hosting some infamous gigs, most notably The Lemonheads and Helmet with the Beastie Boys. It was a pretty basic band venue back then, but novel with its expansive industrial space.

After all these years, the massive building has had a nice renovation and is now Australia’s largest cruise terminal, right down on Victoria Quay. And it appears to be making a comeback as a concert venue, though if that’s the case, they really need to do something about the stage. Namely, make it higher. The venue is one massive, long hall, from where you come up the escalators, walk down past the bar and food area, to the distant end where the stage is. It’s a small, low stage with a suspended rafter ceiling above the long, but narrow room, which meant with a big crowd stretching way back, for those not tall or further back, little could be seen of those on stage. Fortunately, the brilliance of the band would transcend the sub-par confines of the space.

As the venue has a 10pm curfew (which Ellis pledged to play right up to and didn’t let us down), it was a fairly early start around 6pm with many still arriving as the support act Eleanor Jawurlngali was performing an impressive set, setting the mood with her strong, beautiful, ethereal voice. An indigenous woman from Marlinja in the Northern Territory (a small outback community halfway between Alice Springs and Darwin), she blends singing in English alongside her traditional language, Mudburra.

She conjured some deep sounds with her haunting vocals floating above some backing rhythms and wonderful live cello from Stephanie Arnold, who also contributed harmonies. They are sometimes joined on stage by Mick Turner. The slot was a huge platform for Jawurlngali, who left an impression on many that night, especially with her take on Nina Simone’s Sinner Man.

After a bit of a break, there was some commotion from the stage, and the upbeat sounds of Boz Scaggs’ Lido Shuffle rang out, an unexpected entrance song for the band, but there they were—the Dirty Three. Warren with his wild hair and long greying beard in his classic white shirt and black suit is always the focal point, with Mick off to the right, quietly playing his guitar, and Jim behind his modest, basic drum kit.

The new album Love Changes Everything contains six tracks, all aptly titled Love Changes Everything I–VI, and to start the set, we were graced with the first three back to back.

It didn’t take long for Warren to get on the mic and start waxing lyrical. His banter is always an entertaining part of the show; unfortunately, we couldn’t hear him well through the mic earlier on. He raved about how great it was to be back in Perth, and it’s been over 10 years. He also had a strange request: “Has anyone got a belt? My pants are falling down.” Someone willingly obliged. And good thing too, as they surely would have fallen otherwise during Ellis’ wild, dynamic performance.

After the new tracks, next up was Indian Love Song, harking back to their 1995 self-titled debut. It started off with a gently plucked melody, the song building around an Eastern refrain, before they broke the track down to just the bare beat. Then Ellis got the crowd to sing the long bass notes of the melody, waving his arms and conducting the crowd in increasing pitch as they harmonised a giant “ooooooh". After leading them through a few rounds, he shouted “Let’s wake up David McComb!” (the late, legendary Perth singer-songwriter from The Triffids and later The Blackeyed Susans, of which Ellis and White were members), before he stomped on his distortion pedal launched back into the song full throttle, the band exploding into a chaotic, overdriven cacophony.

Ellis leapt onto a podium, and he was suddenly in full view, proceeding to do his trademark crazy violin-man dance, lunging and leaping around like a man possessed, pumping his bow up and down over the strings. It’s such wild, passionate music; an auditory orgy! Epic, driving peaks of sonic euphoria akin as much to the prodigious guitarwork of Jimi Hendrix or the electronic music of The Chemical Brothers as any progressive post-rock, complete with strobes, as the stage set exploded to life.

Warren Ellis is such an enigmatic and entertaining character, whether telling a random, rambling story between songs or launching himself into an unpredictable frenzied attack on his instrument, dancing, gyrating, flailing out his arms, and doing windmills on his violin rockstar style. Occasionally he’d set off, jumping onto the speakers and into the pit, scaling the barrier and jumping into the crowd, much to the concern of security, but he emerged unscathed.

Next was another long-winded intro (dedicated to the recently departed, influential and uncompromising producer and musician Steve Albini) for one of their finest moments from 1998’s Ocean Songs, the majestic and emotionally wrought Sea Above, Sky Below, as the stage curtains were lit an aquamarine shade of blue.

The sound he gets from his violin, since strapping a guitar pickup to it many years ago and experimenting with effects pedals, is amazing. The pure emotion he conjures out of every note or stroke is palpable. Ellis puts his whole body into it, often performing with his back to the audience, facing White, who is in constant motion behind his minimal kit. An amazing drummer, his elegant jazzy style can range from softly shuffling brushwork and spattering, staccato beats that fall like rain, to hard-hitting rock. Turner’s contributions are more subtle and melodic, at time rough and rowdy, always an essential underlying component.

“This was our attempt to write a hit… It didn’t work out. It’s about being down deep in a hole for such a long time, that you start decorating.” This was an intro of course to Everything’s Fucked, from their ’95 debut, but before we got to that, one of Ellis’ funniest and most unhinged rants followed, as he segued into a story about the devil playing Billy Joel’s 1980 pop hit You May Be Right in hell, and what a lame song it was with Billy going on about how ‘crazy’ he was. Then wildly escalating into fantasising a plot to kill Billy and hunting him down at a hotdog stand in Boston – then as sweet revenge, just before stabbing him, quoting his lyrics back at him, “You may be right, I may be crazy, but I just may be the lunatic you’re looking for!”

Then it was straight back into some Authentic Celestial Music, before they finished the set proper with soon-to-be released parts IV and V of Love Changes Everything, which sounded epic and indicated another solid album in their catalogue.

Pretty soon, they returned for an encore, wasting no time. “Live in fucking Fremantle!” Ellis exclaimed. “Thank you, thank you… Well, it’s time to go home.” But they kept true to their word, playing right through to the 10pm curfew, or until they had the power cut. Warren joked about how their album went straight to the top of the charts and that they’re going to have a Christmas number one! 

The finale climaxed in the most beautiful way, with a song he introduced as “There’s gonna be a heart attack under their Christmas tree, aka Sue’s Last Ride"—a common set closer and one of their greatest, most loved tracks from 96’s Horse Stories. They built the track up slowly, with controlled, rumbling jazzy percussion—Jim White is the driving engine of this band. Then guitar and violin combined, and once more, this trio of troubadours took us to soaring emotional heights of melancholic rage, with a strobing backdrop of red velvet.

They bid us goodnight, leaving us with a beautiful, poignant statement: “Remember, you are never alone with Dirty Three." A truly amazing performance by an incredible, unique band and a national treasure, despite the staging shortcomings. It’s a pity not everyone could see and appreciate their wild and dynamic live show.

ALFRED GORMAN

Photos by Linda Dunjey