LIVE: KID CONGO & THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS – Perth, 21 April 2024

LIVE: KID CONGO & THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS – Perth, 21 April 2024
With Little Things, Rosemount Hotel, Perth – Sunday 21st April, 2024
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photos by Linda Dunjey

Little Things start the night with a swirling, trance-like song that brings to mind a less druggy Velvet Underground, guitars, drums, violin all whirling around like the trippy lights. I dig it, and I’m not alone, and their earnest set is an enjoyable warmup for the main event.

The Pink Monkey Birds set up, one bassist down on new album That Delicious Vice, but one Mick Harvey up on this tour – famously Kid’s bandmate in his Bad Seeds tenure back in the bad old days. Harvey dedicates the show to Brian Hooper (Bad Seeds, Beasts of Bourbon, Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, amongst others), gone six years ago yesterday. Rock in Peace.

Kid Congo Powers – ex-Gun Club, The Cramps, The Bad Seeds, and leader of The Pink Monkey Birds for over twenty years – is stylish in a white suit, smart pink shirt and epic red & white cape, not to mention almost as much neck jewellery as Mr T.

The set starts with new tracks Silver For My Sister, The Boy Had It All, then Psychic Future and the wonderful Sean Delear, named for a friend and transmuted into “hanging from the chandelier” for lyrical purposes.

A smattering of Cramps t-shirts throughout the crowd is inevitable, and Kid Congo is not one to disappoint, so from his old band he offers New Kind Of Kick (now the title of his memoir) and Goo Goo Muck, Luxy swamp boogie sleaze offerings in the best possible way, their primitive groove rendering onlookers incapable of standing still.

If anyone was unfamiliar with the new album – just two days hatched – they don’t show it: there’s dancing, moving, grooving, gyrating, shaking, tapping, nodding and – oh yeah – cheering to The Smoke Is The Ghost and Ese Vicio Delicioso, a mexi-go-go party that Kid exhorts us to “sing along to in Spanish, or dance along to in any language.”

“I’m going wild now,” he laughs as he swigs water, while Harvey and guitarist Mark Cisneros play the riff to Tequila. “Oh no – no tequila,” laughs Kid Congo delf deprecatingly, “because you know who drank it all – La Araña” referencing the spider trickster in Chicano culture, and the next song from their 2016 album.

He Walked In from the Swing From The Sean Delear EP is a particular highlight in all its slinky, sexy, seventeen minute glory. It has everything and is enticingly engaging from Mexi-prog flute solo to its hypnotic slow burn climax, The Pink Monkey Birds – rounded out by long-time drummer Ron Miller – play every note with exquisite taste.

The flamboyant frontman is obviously having a hoot and a holler, throwing shapes, waving his hands around as he dances, and engaging in friendly banter with the crowd. It’s clear that having kicked all the bad vices, music is Kid Congo’s most enduring and -yes – most delicious vice.

Gun Club classic She’s Like Heroin To Me is followed by more new tracks – Wicked World and A Beast, A Priest, before he teases us all: “Are you looking for trouble? You’ve come to the right place, just listen to the bass” and what a treat it is to have the meticulous Mick Harvey on that case. Instrumental Bubble Trouble closes out the main set, Kid waving us off with “Thankyou sexy people of Perth – you’re so cool, good night!”

Powers and his band have been in an irresistible groove from the very first note, and if there’s one small disappointment it’s the surprise omission of anything from Powers & Harvey’s time with The Bad Seeds. Perhaps they thought that would be too obvious? It’s a minor issue, of course, and nobody has any grounds for complaint from a night of wonderful music.

“Let’s not talk, let’s just do this!” Of course the show is not yet over – another Gun Club classic, Sex Beat, thrills the crowd, before the “muey romantic” Never Said from the new album closes out the night, and – ever at one with his fans – Powers wastes no time taking pride of place at the merch desk to sign CDs, records and t-shirts and take photos with a long queue of eager, happy punters.

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries