Live Review: Peter Garrett & The Alter Egos, Abbe May

It's a big stage at The Tivoli when you're out there on your lonesome but Perth singer-songwriter Abbe May faces the seated sold out crowd with neither fear nor trepidation, armed with just her guitar (plus a decent swag of effects and triggers), her voice and her growing arsenal of well-crafted songs. She offers a diverse set in line with her chameleon-like career arc, which has seen her flitting from firebrand rocker to country-blues exponent to her current incarnation as '90s R&B chanteuse with complete aplomb. She focuses heavily on songs from her impending album Bitchcraft such as sultry recent single Are We Flirting?, augmented by a smoky rendition of Ginuwine's Pony for added allure.

Soon enough the tangible anticipation in the room is sated by the appearance of Peter Garrett & The Alter Egos, the imposing figure of Garrett not spied in a musical capacity in these parts for some 14 years but seeming to be happily back in his natural habitat as they smash through Kangaroo Tail from his brand new solo album A Version Of Now. He's flanked on his left by the familiar figure of Midnight Oil guitarist Martin Rotsey - the rest of the band comprising Mark Wilson (bass), Abbe May (guitar/vocals), Pete Luscombe (drums) and Rosa Morgan (keys/vocals) - and the sound is rich and full as they move through more new tracks in the form of No Placebo and Only One, Garrett seeming on the verge of busting out some of his familiar dance moves but always pulling back from the brink. He dedicates the next track to the one band who'd offered him encouragement on his fledgling forays into the cutthroat pub circuit back in the day before smashing through a faithful cover of Skyhooks' Ego Is Not A Dirty Word, then sending the entire room into paroxysms of delight with an incendiary reading of early Oils tune Section 5 (Bus To Bondi) (from their 1979 second album Head Injuries). Hearing this is almost enough to bring tears but there's no respite as they follow up with poignant new tune Homecoming and then another Aussie cover, this time a powerful rendering of Divinyls' Back To The Wall. As has always been the case with Garrett we're offered something to think about at every juncture - the message and music always on equal footing - and after the anthemic Great White Shark he takes an only slightly-veiled dig at his old foreman Kevin Rudd before moving onto the verbose but vital It Still Matters. He reflects on his time in politics with I'd Do It Again before closing the set proper with the scattergun imagery of Tall Trees.

It's an almost faultless return, one made even stronger by a double encore featuring a passionate version of Kev Carmody's Thou Shalt Not Steal and a thrilling run through of Midnight Oil classic The Dead Heart which finally gets everyone up from their chairs dancing, parlaying this into a slightly leftfield cover of En Vogue's Free Your Mind to close. It's so great to have this brilliant frontman and thinker back in the musical realms where he belongs - welcome home.