Nirvana – Nevermind the Singer

The Fringe has brilliantly recaptured the essence of many a great musical era over the years, with cover bands inspiring the new generations and yet fuelling the nostalgia of many seniors who come back to a simpler time temporarily, in the short captivation of a single performance. One talented group, in all its glory, milks the essence of the 90’s precursor of grunge. Nirvana- Never Mind the Singer by Great White Productions became a little something to diversify the Fringes’ entertaining reaches across Adelaide.

Upon entering the well renounced Crown and Anchor venue just a corner away from the action of Rundle Street, the back room had filled to capacity. The crowd formed a hoard of ex-rockers snug up against the stage front and inevitably piled all the way to the peeling band posters at the rear. It wasn’t long before the screeching of distorted guitars arose the morbidity and excitement of Kurt Cobain’s unique style and so, as the pun intends, the band kicked off in chronological order the tracks from Nirvana’s Nevermind album, with the hit song Smells Like Teen Spirit in the lead.

In an unexpected twist, the band featured two females of the five vocalists, which produced an aura of perpetual tone shifts amongst the high octaves and the low octaves in each piece.  With some dominating as lead and some supporting as backup, the transition of vocal ranges made for a great show all in all, achieving a wide spectrum of sound that any trained ear can appreciate.

The instrumental efforts were close with the original recordings, and for the fans, that really fulfilled the desire to witness a live act of such a pioneering sound.

Loud and abound, the atmosphere continued to increase, and each song began to peak higher and higher as the voice boxes of the singers began to tear. Personally, the energy from Territorial Pissings blew me away, as the notable song to end in Cobain’s chaotic screams, you could see the exertions upon each face as they screamed in unison.

Unfortunately, the show was a one night only. However, if you have a chance, come as you are to see Nirvana: Nevermind the Singer.

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Four stars

Words by Sarah Ingham

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The Hearth: Of the Night

Words by Kayla Gaskell

In the last few years the creative writing community has retaken the night with a range of creative reading and poetry events popping up all around Adelaide. The Hearth is one such event, run by Flinders University Alumni Melanie Pryor, Alicia Carter, Lauren Butterworth, and Emma Maguire. Providing an outlet for creatives to share their work, The Hearth runs four themed events each year. The final event of 2017 was themed ‘Of the Night’, allowing several writers the opportunity to respond creatively to this theme.

The Jade has proven an excellent choice in venue with friendly staff and a stage for readers to present their work. While Thursday’s event was delayed due to another event having run before The Hearth, there was an excellent turn out of people wanting to support their writing community.

Readers for ‘Of the Night’ included: JV Birch, Marina Deller, Andy Lee, Lisandra Linde and Melanie Pryor.Music was provided by Dee Trawartha leading up to the readings, and between sets. The readers presented a mixture of poetry, personal essay, creative non-fiction, and fiction all with the common theme of ‘night’. This diversity in creative writing was excellent to see and kept the audience engaged throughout.

The Hearth Collective: Alicia Carter, Lauren Butterworth, Emma Maguire and Melanie Pryor, Photo: Brendan Davies

Lisandra Linde was the first reader; a creative writing honours student at Flinders University with a background in forensic archaeology. Lisandra presented a creative non-fiction piece dealing with her thoughts about her own mortality and her first experience confronted with death—encountering a corpse in her previous field of study.

Andy Lee, an environment student at Flinders, shared three of his poems, all written for performance. His work is heavy with naturalistic imagery and considers the world around him, how he views it, and how others view it. Drawing on his studies he is a able to bring in environmental concepts such as the twenty-ninth day in order to promote environmental awareness.

Marina Deller is one assignment away from finishing her degree and presented a moving personal essay about finding herself again after a terrible period in her life. Marina is a highly engaging speaker and held the audience captive as she spoke about her life experiences and how losing her friend and, shortly after, her mother changed her outlook on life.

 

Melanie Pryor, a PhD candidate, presented a piece crafted from three memories given to her in a previous project in 2013. These memories, together with some haunting music, inspired the story of a boy whose neighbour’s little girl disappeared. A captivating story, Melanie used the memories of people living with dementia and turned them into a story of her own.

JV Birch is a poet who moved to Adelaide from London five years ago. She claims to have the concentration span of a goldfish and says that is why her poetry is so short, although it seems more likely that she dislikes excessive verbiage. JV presented six short poems each revolving around the moon.

Q&A Panel at the Hearth, Photo: Lauren Butterworth

The Hearth, as well as providing a place for writers to share their work, also invites audience engagement with a Q & A session following the readings. In the Q & A, the audience, as well as the presenters, are able to ask questions about the writing process and the pieces and ideas presented.

The Hearth was involved in the 2017 Adelaide Fringe Festival and has just announced their continued involvement in 2018. The theme for their next event, this coming March, is Masquerade, and they will soon be on the lookout for pitches.

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For more information on The Hearth and upcoming events check out their Facebook page. Tulpa would like to thank The Hearth Collective for providing the photos used in this review. 

Photos by Lauren Butterworth and Brendan Davies

Review by Kayla Gaskell