Review: The Cruel Sea at Fremantle Prison

The Cruel Sea The Honeymoon is Over Anniversary Tour at Fremantle Prison
w/ Datura4
Saturday, December 9, 2023

A red, cloud-covered sky began to form above Fremantle Prison on Saturday night as local blues-rockers Datura4 kicked off their sunset serenade. The five-piece’s sound rumbled and shuffled with vigour, a healthy combination of creamy and crunchy guitar tones, backed by a solid groove and fire. Their demeanour and playing were unaffected by the occasional and indistinguishable yelling of impatient audience members, culminating in a crescendo that got some of the reserved seating area up for a standing ovation.

The time between acts was spent listening to sixties girl groups over the PA and stories from audience members about Tex in the wild. When it was finally dark enough, green lights graced the stage backdrop, while reggae music played noticeably louder than the girl groups. This greeted The Cruel Sea’s four instrumentalists. After tuning up, the shimmering opening chord of Shadder from their second album, This Is Not the Way Home, rang out, with the rest of the band quickly joining in. Drummer Jim Elliot and bassist Ken Gormly rolled out a relaxed backbeat while Matt Walker and Dan Rumour settled in on their guitars.

As Rumour began to swagger out It’s Alright (Because She Loves Me), singer Tex Perkins made his timely strut onstage. Asserting his dominance, mic stand in hand, his voice quickly projected power like a Freo Prison warden. An impressive falsetto howled at the song's end, seemingly fuelled by childlike spontaneity. This probably fuelled his ventures atop the foldbacks and several misguided tambourine antics, one of which narrowly missed Dan Rumour. Tambourine’s swooping like magpies didn’t seem to harm the trademark Cruel Sea groove as they rolled through Anybody but You and Delivery Man. The latter’s sinister tone felt eerily fitting for such a venue.

Tex’s banter included a wide range of topics, including Uber Eats, Jetstar (he’s not a fan of them), his bandmates (he is a fan of them), and his dealings with homophobic police growing up in Queensland. He followed this story with the best advice he had: “Better get a lawyer son, you better get a reeeeaaaal good one." Some of the reserved seating area in front of the stage were probably those lawyers he was talking about. This area was suitable enough for the calm instrumental section that followed Better Get a Lawyer, when Tex left the stage to ‘call his mother.’ Bassist Ken Gormly took this opportunity to sneak into centre stage, almost slow dancing with his battered Fender bass and a cheeky grin on his face.

Matt Walker’s warm, warbling organ (in place of the late James Cruickshank) on Woman With Soul brought on a romantic and intimate vibe, greeting Tex’s return before bursting into Cocaine Running Around in My Brain. By now, the area surrounding the seated area was where groove-fueled energy was truly resonating, and audience members used the fringes of this area to display their finest dance moves.

Not even an audible out-of-time echo, when standing too close to the main cell block, seemed to stop anyone. If only this section were closer to the stage for the band to appreciate. A pair of songs from The Honeymoon is Over (Black Stick and the title track) brought some of the front rows to their feet, much to the annoyance of security. Guitar tones, particularly on songs from this album, were created with impressive accuracy without being detrimental to the live atmosphere.

After finishing This is Not the Way Home, the audience managed to conjure just enough enthusiasm for an encore. Starting unassumingly with a pair of instrumentals, Tex re-emerged to showcase some of their debut album, keeping up the good balance of material from their entire catalogue they had maintained during the set. Blame it on the Moon brought back those romantic vibes with added warmth and smooth sincerity—a perfect song for a summer’s evening. During the closing number, the raucous blues of Sure ‘Nuff, Tex finally climbed onto the foldbacks one too many times and went flying backwards like a six-foot-four sack of shit. After singing a few bars while lying down, he stylishly resurrected himself for the remainder of the song.

The performance brought to mind a quote from Ken Gormly when he spoke to X-Press a few weeks earlier: “It’s just a kind of groove; there aren’t any silly bits to remember." The Cruel Sea play with a kind of loose groove that hangs on a tightrope. Not the kind of tightrope walk for doing some silly tricks, the kind that just moves steadily along and balances perfectly. The only silly bit was maybe Tex’s tumble.

AJ MAHAR

Photos by Linda Dunjey