GASOLINE INC
Limited Edition CD single launch
Fly by Night Club, Fremantle
29th May 2010

Gasoline Inc rarely just play a gig, rather they painstakingly put together compatible lineups and put on EVENTS! To celebrate the release of their limited edition single ‘The Dirty Three’/’The Quatrains’, tonight was billed as a desperado themed fiesta with some surprises, giveaways and a big production lined up. It’s ambitious – some would say audacious – for a relatively new local band to book such a big venue, and a lot of hard work went into promoting the night and filling the hall.

 

THE SMILING ASSASSINS kicked off proceedings with a soulful rock flavour, and slowly won over the initially shy and reserved crowd, who were perhaps a bit bemused by the size of the brightly lit venue.

 

Daniel Picton-King has a voice not dissimilar to Jet’s Nic Cester, and if you can imagine if Jet’s primary influence were Led Zeppelin rather than The Stones, then throw in a large portion of Lenny Kravitz funk and Diesel-like soul, then you’ll be getting close to why these Assassins were smiling.

 

 

‘Soldier’ from their “Caecus” EP and newer tracks like ‘Comin Down’ gave each of the band the opportunity to shine and converted a fair percentage of the crowd to their cause.

The night belonged to the headliners, however, and the large venue was close to full by show time. A nervous MC handed out a few prize vouchers and announced that a portion of the door was being donated to the Strike A Chord Foundation, a charity dedicated to buying instruments for kids suffering from cancer.

 

The crowd surged forward as the lights dimmed, and out strode GASOLINE INC, acoustic guitars ablaze with flamenco licks as Brazilian-born lead singer Gabriel O’Brien played the Mexican mariachi to the hilt while singing the Spanish language Los Lobos/Antonio Banderas song ‘Morena De Mi Corazon’ (‘Woman of my heart’) from the “Desperado” movie soundtrack.

 

 

The surprises continued with Mili Separovic augmenting the lineup on keyboards, and his contributions fleshed out old favourites like ‘Nicotine + Love’ and ‘Friend of the Devil’. In fact the overall sound has matured and evolved beyond just the addition of keyboards, right down to the arrangements of some of the older tunes, the latter even being introduced as “an old song, reworked a bit”.

 

 

Newie ‘Another Candle Burns’ is a Stonesy rocking boogie romp featuring guitarist Matt Sofoulis on co-lead vocals, and then the Fremantle Voices In Sync choir takes to the stage and the music ascends to a higher plane.

 

‘The Quatrains’, one of the tracks featured on the CD single being released exclusively tonight (under the banner “Gasoline” rather than Gasoline Inc, to make it even more of a special collector’s item – the band have promised not to re-release this single in the future), is amazingly powerful as the dozen and a half voice choir lift it to the heavens with an emotional resonance usually reserved for gospel soul classics.

 

 

The choir stuck around to help the band perform a stellar version of U2’s ‘With Or Without You’ in the “Rattle & Hum” style, then exited as the band launched into the other song from their new single, ‘The Dirty Three’, before the one-two punch of their self titled EP tracks ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Superstar’.

 

 

‘Superstar’ was an instant classic upon release, and you can really only open or close with this one, and the crowd went suitably wild calling the boys back for an encore after they left the darkened stage.

 

Little did they know the boys had something special in store, and they returned donning masks, capes & the like, launching into an epic new number titled ‘The Broken Ballet’ which allowed Gab to exercise his theatrical muscles (and show off his torso to the girls in the audience) as he played circus ringmaster and invited the crowd into “The Greatest Show On Earth!”.

 

 

This tune has the potential to be the band’s own ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as it gets fleshed out – the current version is apparently only a portion of the guys’ vision for the final number. Tonight it segued, fittingly, into a small section of Queen’s masterpiece, then a slice of their own ‘Superstar’, before coming back to ‘The Broken Ballet’ to wrap the night up in splendid fashion.

 

It’s a mark of the guys appreciation of their fans that they were quickly out onto the merch desk and kept signing CDs until the very last person left the venue, proving themselves crowd pleasers both onstage and off.

 

 

Shane Rockpit

Setlist:-

 

Morena De Mi Corazon
Nicotine and Love
Shedding My Skin
Friend of the Devil
Music Is My Religion
Another Candle Burns
The Quatrains
With Or Without You (U2 cover)
The Dirty Three
Dynamite
Superstar

 

Encore:-
The Broken Ballet
Including snippets of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (Queen cover)
& ‘Superstar’