27 Club Adelaide Fringe

We all know the legend of the 27 club. Seriously if you don’t already know this then you shouldn’t be on a music and culture website! All it’s were music legends and all were dead at 27, their soul’s exchanged with the Devil for rock and roll immortally!

It is a prestigious but tragic club of music legends think Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. There are so many members of the 27 club but this show concentrates on the big 5. Perhaps Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones was left out as he didn’t write or sing? Not enough soul selling there perhaps? The show does its very best to cover as much music as possible in the space of an hour and it gives us a refresher course into how truly iconic and influential these musicians were.

Aussie rock stalwarts Kevin Mitchell from Jebidiah and Bob Evans fan and Sarah McLeod from the Superjesus together with Carla Luppis and backed by Dusty Lee Stephenson and the Wanderers have the task of breathing life back into the music of the dead superstars.

The band and vocalists are outstanding.  The Wanderers open with Hendrix’s Purple Haze before Bob takes up Nirvana’s mantle with great aplomb. Carla gives us Amy Winehouse before Sarah makes her first entrance to tear up the stage with her trademark stagecraft to Janice Joplin.

The scene is set. The vocalists trade songs and artists throughout the show. A highlight being Carla’s soul jazz Nirvana, just beautiful. During a Hendrix track we a treated by dusty to guitar playing behind the head and also shredding with his teeth. There is clearly a great camaraderie between this super-group Sarah and Carla duet ‘Me and Bobby Magee’ and all four singers tackle ‘Take another Little Piece of Heart’. In between songs there are snippets on the life and careers of the artist. This adds depth and context but doesn’t dominate the show as for the most part it is as it should be, the music is left to do the talking.

There is clearly an appetite for this sort of a show with Adalita, Phil Jamieson, Tim Rogers and Tex Perkins about to undertake a tour in April of The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album so hopefully the 27 Club will also be getting around the country soon also.

27 Club | Adelaide Fringe

Kevin Mitchell (@bobevansmusic) • Instagram photos and videos

Sarah McLeod (@sarahmcleod1) • Instagram photos and videos