RENEE GEYER LIVE!

Rip It Up, Issue 13, 1 July 1978, Page 16

RENEE GEYER LIVE!

Ken Williams

At the outset I shall say I wasn’t quite prepared for Renee Geyer's Trillo’s show. Word of mouth reports of her performance during her previous tour had been appetitewhetting, but I was lukewarm about her recordings. In person, she was more than convincing, she was magnificent. Her opening, "The Thrill is Gone”, would have done proud those two artists who had hits with the song, Aretha Franklin and 8.8. King. Aretha appears to be a big influence on Renee Geyer, but there’s no question of imitation. She has developed far beyond imitation. Blue-eyed soul, hot and saucy, cool and dignified, rabble-rousing, soothing, always tasty. She has been working on the style a long time and it’s paid off. She has still to take off in the States, but she is recording there and the break can’t be far away. On stage, the eye is always on Renee. She has striking looks and knows how to command attention. But she’s more than ably assisted by her five-piece band. She’s abandoned horns in a live situation, with the burden for punctuation falling mainly on lead guitarist Mark Punch and keyboards man

Mai Logan. They shoulder the task admirably. Punch particularly impressed with his sensitive and melodic style, though he could sting when the moment warranted. The songs were by and large new ones, several composed by Punch. The similarity in tempo and approach in some of the numbers led to moments of mind wandering and perhaps the near capacity crowd weren’t to blame for their sluggish response to Renee’s get-up-and-shake-it exhortations as she moved into top gear with "Save Me.” But she certainly knows how to work a crowd and they were on her side. “Heading in the Right Direction” got the applause, but for me the stand-out was a new song (by one Earl Robinson), "I Miss You.” The closer, with plenty of room for individual solos by the band, is an imaginative re-working of "Money” (yes, Virginia, the Beatles, the Stones et al). It was due for a revival. "Money (That’s What I want)” was one of the first tunes from the Berry Gordy Motown factory. It's appropriate that it’s the new single for a singer carrying on the tradition that Gordy has devalued.