Live Review: The Ape

The Ape pulled together what can only be described as a troupe of local legends and scallywags – guitarist Raul Sanchez (Magic Dirt), drummer Gus Agars (The Gin Club), with Pat Bourke (Dallas Crane) on bass duties, fronted by the original Beast of Bourbon himself, Tex Perkins.

It was a modest though enthusiastic crowd that greeted them, however, it became evident almost from the outset that there was something lacking in the musical gel of this group. Sanchez produced some nice enough tones, soaking his guitar hooks in layers of fuzz, phase and modulation. Tex threw down unpolished riffs with plenty of his usual swagger, while Agars and Bourke kept a solid enough floor. Sadly, it wasn't enough to breathe any exciting life into all-too-familiar vanilla rock hooks. The playing from the group overall was as accomplished as it was uninspiring.

Agars moved from drums to electric piano as they played through a rendition of The Rolling Stones' No Expectations, then it was back to percussion and cheesy harmonies to close out the set with Can't Feel A Thing, a tune that started out with the promise of providing a dirtier blues vibe, then reverted to straight-up rock riffs in a powerful ending.

After a short break, the group returned for an encore comprised primarily of covers. Van Morrison's I Can Only Give You Everything is followed surprisingly by the Rogers and Hart standard Blue Moon, which sees Tex double up on microphones treated with enough vocal delay to keep it from being awful. Real Cool Time had the set end in the style of The Stooges, before the lads took their bows front and back.

There's no doubting The Ape were able to punch out fun tunes and fun times; it'd have to be an awful night for players of this esteem to fail at that task. While there were some moments of brilliance shining above the layers of nonchalance, this was a case where the overall result was probably not up to the standard expected by the sum of its parts.