Wednesday 06/08/08 Robert Forster @ The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide

It’s one of those nights that could easily have been defined by absence. Robert Forster’s band, after all, is essentially the most recent line-up of The Go-Betweens, minus his songwriting partner Grant McLennan – who suffered a fatal heart attack just over two years ago. To that you can add the fact that there’s no support band, and rather less of an audience than you might have hoped for. There’s something fitting in that, of course: if you ever wanted to study the futility of rock criticism, and its inability to turn readers into fans, The Go-Betweens would be high on the agenda. They might well have been better off with royalties on their glowing reviews rather than their record sales.

Performing the first few songs solo, Forster initially does little to fill the gaps. His stage manner is awkward; his nerves are obvious, despite a thirty-year performing career; the distance between him and the audience seems immense, and not just because the seating arrangement has left a few acres vacant in front of the stage. But slowly, he turns things around.

In truth, even at the start, there’s a magic here that I’ve never found in The Go-Betweens or Forster’s solo work. It’s always been easy to admire Forster’s writing, but not – in my case – to get even remotely excited about it. Nothing ever seemed to cut through all those smooth, polished edges, the studied cool. But tonight it’s a different story. There’s a vulnerability in Forster’s performance, together with far more emotion in his voice than you’ll hear on his recordings. And though the distance initially works for him, heightening the effect, he gradually pulls us in and takes us somewhere else entirely. This isn’t so much a gig, as a journey.

After the solo introduction, band members are added one by one. Adele Pickvance (bass) arrives first, for 'If It Rains', the opening track on Forster’s new solo release. Glenn Thompson, drummer for The Go-Betweens, but now playing guitar and keyboards, joins for 'Demon Days', the next track on The Evangelist. It’s one of three on the CD that McLennan started before he died. For a brief moment it looks as if we’re going to get a solid run through the album, which would be no bad thing. But from then on there are only two more songs from The Evangelist, and as it turns out nearly half of the set is drawn from the Go-Betweens’ reformation albums. 'Rock And Roll Friend' and 'When She Sang About Angels' are both played without any drums or percussion, and benefit from the space. So much so, there’s a worry that with the addition of Matthew Harrison on drums everything will sound too crowded.

Instead, though it’s immediately followed by a short break, Harrison’s arrival proves to be the moment when everything really starts to gel. Forster grows in confidence throughout the second set, and what started out as a tentative performance soon becomes both passionate and taut. Diffidence gives way to exuberance.

'Head Full Of Steam' is the first song that could be labelled a hit, even by The Go-Betweens’ fairly modest standards. Good though it is, it’s immediately bettered by 'Pandanus' and 'Surfing Magazines'. The latter even has Forster wondering if he and the band are rocking too hard, but they continue in pretty much the same vein for the rest of the night, peaking – and closing the set – with 'Here Comes A City'. All that’s left is the encores, which focus on Forster’s nineties solo albums. Heart Out To Tender is new to me, but proves to be excellent.

By the end Forster has me vowing to reinvestigate his and The Go-Betweens’ back catalogs: I’m closer to being a fan now than I’ve ever been. Trouble is, it’s already obvious that next to a performance as good as this, the recordings can only be disappointing.