Live Review: Tex Perkins & Matt Walker, India Bradshaw

A chilly Saturday night in Perth saw a good crowd in early at the Charles Hotel eager to catch Tex Perkins on his latest sojourn to Western Australia, accompanied this time around by ARIA Award winner Matt Walker on guitar. 

Opening up this evening was singer/songwriter India Bradshaw who treated the early comers to a fine solo set featuring songs from her recently released EP, Maybreak. A finalist in the Fairbridge Songwriting Quest, her indie-folk songs and sweet voice went down well with the audience. Her performance, which included a cover of Britney Spears' Toxic, was highlighted by two songs from her EP, A Sweet Song and Camel.

Opening up with A Man In Conflict With Nature, from the forthcoming Tex Perkins, Don Walker and Charlie Owen album You Don't Know Lonely, a cautionary tale of winning on the greyhounds and blowing it on "three hookers and some sushi", Tex Perkins took his audience on a musical journey covering his stories over his 30-year career fronting legendary outfits Beasts Of Bourbon, The Cruel Sea and Dark Horses to name a few. Backed up by the impressive Matt Walker, the gravelly voiced Perkins - who one punter was overheard referring to as "Australia's answer to (Mark) Lanegan" - switched effortlessly between acoustic and electric guitar during what proved to be a mesmerising performance.

So Much Older and What Do You Want Now, both from Tex Perkins & The Dark Horses self-titled 2011 album, were early standouts, as was the Tony Joe White penned Woman With Soul which Perkins had recorded with The Cruel Sea back in the early '90s. Harking back to his days with Beasts of Bourbon, a band that Perkins himself referred to as "the most horrible band in the world", Perkins and Walker delivered great versions of Can't Say No and Leon Payne's Psycho.

With Perkins having spent so much time over the last few years performing songs by Johnny Cash in The Man In Black shows with The Tennessee Four, it was no real surprise that he chose to finish off the evening's set with a couple of Cash tunes. A Boy Named Sue was followed up by Hurt, much to the delight of the audience before the duo thanked the appreciative crowd and made their way from the stage.

They were soon back, however, for the first of two encores which saw them play great versions of The Cruel Sea's This Is Not The Way Home and the classic Fake That Emotion from the 1993 Perkins, Walker and Owen album Sad But True, before taking their leave for the final time to loud applause.

Thankfully, fans won't have to wait too long for Perkins' next tour of Western Australia with him returning in September with Walker and Owen in support of their new album, which promises to be yet another great album from an artist who must surely be regarded as one of the greatest front men in the country.