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LIVE PERFORMANCE
Roxanne Live @ Bar Broadway, Sydney City
A mild winter night saw a full house at Bar Broadway entertained by Roxanne with the Hired Guns, as part of the "Belles On Broadway" review. Roxanne played a strong set of her favourite songs and won a few new fans, as well as few hearts on the night.
Backed by four of Sydney's most respected musicians, Scott Johnston on drums, Ben Rosen on bass, John Bush playing lead guitar and husband Stephen Kiely on keyboards and guitar, Roxanne kicked off the set with one of her best-loved numbers, "See The Difference".
This energetic song set the pace for the set as the band segued into "Tender", the only cover of the set, having been written by Mary Chapin-Carpenter. The audience began feeding Rox back a great vibe as she broke into "Crucified By Tears", passionate in spanish, by Kiely, Roxanne did real justice to the song.
Next up, rising through the country-funk bass pattern courtesy of Ben Rosen's fine finger-playing, came "Lovin' You", a song written by both Roxanne and Stephen, featuring sweet country harmonies albeit over a sad country theme.
Interaction was the word of the moment. Interaction between Roxanne and the band spilled over to the audience who could sense they were experiencing something special on this night, and showed their appreciation. John Bush opened the next song, "Bad Hair Day" , which Rox wrote with Alan Caswell not long ago and features a theme which we can all identify with: the dreaded day when nothin' you do to your hair will make any difference.
Out of this reflective number, the band kicked into "Better Than Best" which features another great lyric set to a cookin' theme by the lady herself, as well as a blistering solo from Mr. Bush.
And so as to settle things down a little, Roxanne played a song, a tribute to her mother and a favourite with her fans, "A Little Bit Of You". The touching lyric is hard to dismiss and the band's able handling of the arrangement, especially Scott's percussion, brought a very romantic moment to the night's proceedings. This girl can certainly turn her composing and performing hand to a number of styles and make them her own.
And to ensure she left the audience asking for more, Roxanne led the band into "Magic", one of her most energetic songs, which gave the boys plenty of room to cut loose and lift the temperature of the room a couple more degrees. As is usually the case, it felt like this was a fine time to start the set all over again, if not carry on into the night as the audience was now giving the players back as much energy as they'd received. But there were two other fine acts to come and time waits for no-one, so by way of saying "Goodnight", Roxanne led the band back into a reprise of "See The Difference", laying it down hard for a couple of choruses, then leaving the stage with the audience crying out for more.
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