Calexico and Augie March review: Thriving in music's border country

Reviewer rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

CALEXICO AND AUGIE MARCH

Spectrum Now Big Top, Domain, March 6

A few hours spent sweltering, and smacking down mosquitoes, in a grandly presented big tent with Melbourne's Augie March and Tucson's Calexico put me in mind of Janis Pugh's film, Conversations With My Aunt.

Now, this is not the most rock'n'roll analogy, but then neither Calexico nor Augie March are classic rock'n'roll bands, notwithstanding the presence of guitar, bass and drums – and, these days, brass for both.

I'm not suggesting you should draw too much from that film's focus on Alzheimer's, except maybe for a forgetful writer rather than either group losing its grip on the past or present.

Instead, what I got from these two bands was the sheer pleasure of hanging out with someone with a bit of class and experience who isn't trying for showiness but is, nonetheless, pretty cool. Someone who isn't afraid of being pointed but not looking to score points off you. Someone who makes you feel like you're getting the benefit of their mistakes but all the while making you laugh at the pleasures of life. Time with your favourite aunt.

Augie March, a year or so into their second, post-hiatus life and some two decades into a continuing story, are still a bit shambolic and awkward.

The brass section failed to reappear at one point (they didn't have an up-to-date set list it seems); singer Glenn Richards will never master the art of between song chat; and while drummer David Williams is amusing and, latterly, a natty dresser, no one would accuse Adam Donovan, Kiernan Box and Edmondo Ammendola of being flashy or natural performers.

But they have songs of such wisdom and beauty (and occasionally tart humour), there's a judiciously balanced mix of drama and romanticism, and Ammendola's voice, in particular, works along the grain of Richards', that the rewards outlast quibbles such as mixed quality sound and a wish for projection.

Calexico​ are more graceful and elegant – without needing to play slowly/portentously to emphasise that – and more loose than Augie March. Their world is of and beyond the American/Mexican boundary and their pleasures engaging and outgoing.

The brass often is from south of the border, all parp​ and punctuation; the intellectualism more northern-ish; the rock-meets-country has a strong touch of the west coast; and the rhythms and showmanship, at times, felt very east, as in nearer Cuba than, say, Nashville.

Crucially, though, at the centre was a sound and a presence that said all these elements were equal and welcome and there to be enjoyed. Which we did.