Royalty - The Cat Empire at The Prince

Band: The Cat Empire, supported by Symbiosis
Venue: The Prince Bandroom
Date: Thursday 20th September 2007
Reviewed By: Heather

I have to admit my bias as a shameless Cat Empire fan here. Please don't hold it against me!

Arriving early paid off, as we took our places at the edge of the stage. An important detail for short people like us! A relatively short two-drink wait went by uneventfully as I scanned the quickly-filling room and chatted.

Symbiosis hit the stage first, taking a couple of songs to warm up the crowd (who were obviously mostly one-eyed Cat Empire fans) before the room started jumping. By the time they broke into Walk Your Walk everybody in our immediate vicinity was moving. In the end, the short time allotted for the warm-up set was over far too soon. I had never seen them live before, and I’ll definitely be back for seconds.

The crowd erupted at the first glimpse of Felix, Harry and the rest of the Cat Empire. Songs from the as-yet-unreleased album were scattered throughout some more familiar tunes. A welcome addition to the setlist was The Crowd, an anthem with St Kilda at its heart. Local interest always adds a certain energy to the room, which lifted the band too.

There was a guest timbale player, Nasrine Rahmani (a member of The Espy regular band Tumbarumba), who was amazing. A music battle heated up between Nasrine's timbale-belting and Jumps’ skratching, which had to be one of the night’s high points. Harry outdid himself when an improv session went a bit awry and he pulled things back together in the space of a few seconds. His music direction skills almost eclipsed his trumpet playing. It was great to hear The Wine Song too - one that seems to be overlooked in live shows.
The new single No Longer There was nice, but definitely not vintage Cat Empire. I am still not sure what I think of it, but it’s had some great reviews elsewhere, so I’ll shut up about that one.

I think the night in general was pulled down a little by too many unreleased songs in the setlist. The crowd began to get bored at one point, and possibly songs from the new album should be played live, but kept to a minimum – maybe three or four per gig rather than what amounted to about half. Now that the album has been released it should drive up crowd interest a bit.

Still, not enough to decrease my enjoyment. I have never yet been to a boring Cat Empire gig, and I hope I never will. Well worth the ticket price, as always!