The Hi-Fi Bar and Ballroom, deserves credit for its renovations. Running second behind the majestic Forum, the Hi-Fi is a brilliant live music venue in Melbourne. The concept of being centre stage is literally conveyed in the tiered room, with the platform positioned high up so that viewing the band is not a difficult prospect, even for the vertically challenged. Tonight Augie March shone on this centre stage, playing, in true Christmas spirit, a wonderful collection of tunes from their back catalogue, to a warm and festively boisterous crowd.

Kicking off in the typical no frills style the band went back to the beginning for it’s opening number, with the epically soaring ‘Hole in Your Roof’ from Sunset Studies. After last year’s Christmas show sound debacle at the Prince of Wales, many we’re holding their breath to see if the quality of the mix was up to Richards’ lofty standards. However this performance put any anxiety related to this issue to bed, the song reeking of authority, with crisp instrumentation and clear vocals. Continuing the Sunset Studies revision in strict album track order, the second song played was ‘Maroondah Reservoir’ – Richards announcing afterwards that it was the first time in a couple of years or so that the band had performed these two tracks, thankfully this absence made little difference to the quality of the performance.

With the thunderstorm earlier in the day in Melbourne still lingering, ‘Cold Acre’ was a welcome tune, with Dave Williams’ wrist powered bells adding further to the Christmas cheer. ‘Just Passing Through’ continued the transition to more recent material, while another duet of songs from the first album followed (‘The Good Gardner’ and ‘Tulip’). During the delicate and subtle opening parts of ‘Tulip’ a very disrespectful female member of the audience was yelling out obscenities telling the band to get off the stage, and other such primitive drunken punter nonsense. Richards rightfully told her ‘Shut up, I can’t hear anything,’ and thankfully regained composure for the rest of the track, allowing the majority of the patiently admiring crowd to slip back into wonder.     

After ‘The Good Gardener’, Dave Williams was allowed the opportunity for his comic relief, providing an interesting story involving acid, spewing and Meredith. From this candid little interlude, the band launched straight into the rollicking ‘Brundisium’, closing out the first half of the show in rapturous fashion. 

During ‘Brundisium’, as with songs performed earlier in the set, Richards faraway gaze was mesmerizing, with sweat dripping off his brow he rushed around stage at various points checking things were up to scratch. Some would label the gaze he held as madness, but equally one could call it dedicated unwavering focus, or as Richards put it in a comment to the audience after ‘The Good Gardener’, (enquiring if they were satisfied with the set list up to this point) “I don’t know why I seek approval, I really don’t, it’s never made an ounce of difference”.

For the encore, Richards returned with his acoustic guitar accompanied only by lead guitarist Adam Donavan. With Richards announcing that a new track was to be played, the excitement of the crowd was sky high – it was time for the Christmas present that everyone was waiting to unwrap. Unfortunately the wrapping paper and the ribbon remained on the gift however, with the same disrespectful crowd member from before spoiling the moment -- yelling in a mostly incoherent drunken mess a request for ‘One Crowded Hour’. At this point Richards had enough, “Okay, you’re not hearing the new one, I’m playing another song instead” changing the position of his capo on his guitar at the same time. The substitute was the ever reliable, but well worn ‘Bottle Baby’.
 
Any dissatisfaction at not being able to hear the new track was soon forgotten as  Richards and Kiernan Box executed a beautiful acoustic rendition of ‘This Train will be Taking no Passengers’. With guitar and harmonica only, Richards’ booming voice carried the song even without the extra instrumentation contained in the album version. ‘Sunstroke House’ and ‘Mother Greer’ were then played with all five band members picturesquely arranged at the front of the stage, interlaced with some warm banter between Williams and Richards.

While ‘Train,’ was cut back to its foundations, extensions were made to the elegant simplicity of the album version of ‘No Such Place’ – the more beefed up full band version a welcome change up. Following this Richards’ introduced the next number by saying “This is the song that I detest the most. It made us who we are” with ‘Asleep in Perfection’ being the subject of his comment. The even more notorious ‘One Crowded Hour’ followed, the screaming drunk from earlier finally sedated.