We Are Lightning! review: Whole Lotta Love for the spirit of live music

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This was published 6 years ago

We Are Lightning! review: Whole Lotta Love for the spirit of live music

By Cameron Woodhead
Updated

THEATRE
WE ARE LIGHTNING! ★★★
Joseph O'Farrell (JOF) & Sam Halmarack
​Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
Until December 10

Did you get pissed off, or just watch glumly on, watching a swag of Melbourne's live music venues fall to a wave of gentrification over the last two decades? Either way, this one's for you.

We Are Lightning!

We Are Lightning!Credit: Bryony Jackson

Inspired by a similar situation in London, We Are Lightning! combines live art concert and clownish rockumentary to create a wacky, rousing celebration of the sense of community in our grassroots music scene.

It's all held together in a seat-of-the-pants way by Joseph O'Farrell (JOF) and Sam Halmarack, a shambolic comedy duo who corral the audience into the auditorium and try to dampen expectations. We'll be hearing a band play their very first gig, Halmarack informs us. "There are no wrong notes," JOF adds, "if you listen in the right way".

We Are Lightning!

We Are Lightning!Credit: Bryony Jackson

In fact, this odd couple forms part of a band rehearsing – Halmarack on lead guitar and vocals, JOF on drums, Tamara Murphy on bass – and their songs, typically melodic alt-rock with a hypnotic groove, are the kind you'd pay money to hear.

Spliced with self-deprecating digs at the behind-the-scenes foibles of live music culture, and worries at the struggle imposed by dwindling venues, we're introduced one by one to the promised amateurs.

There's the novice but infectiously enthusiastic teenage rock band, Pythagoras and the Field, to remind us where it all starts; a six-piece brass band, complete with cheesy uniforms; and a community choir, Harmony for Humanity, with a taste for maudlin Celtic ballads.

There's even a cameo from two bouncers (Alex Barrowman and Rob Vegas) who know how to shred a guitar.

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We Are Lightning!

We Are Lightning!Credit: Bryony Jackson

They all get a chance to shine – or not – individually, and come together for a symphonic rock finale, We Let Ourselves Back In, framed as a farewell gig in a venue about to close.

JOF and Halmarack's lackadaisical shtick might be as messy and errant as webs spun by spiders on marijuana, but polished performances are not what the show's about.

No, We Are Lightning! harnesses, in the best sense, the spirit of the amateur. The word itself comes from the French for love, of course, and this tribute to music performed and shared with nothing but passion has been threaded together by director Ian Pidd into a cute, funny and surprisingly musically pleasing performance, with a whole lotta love in the room.

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