It seems a thousand years ago that The Go-Betweens were banging out albums such as Send Me A Lullaby and Before Hollywood, gradually establishing themselves as a presence in Indieland UK. The band's roots go back to 1977, when Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were arts students at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. For fans of whimsical guitar tunes with concealed fangs, the six albums they made before imploding in 1989 linger on as peerless specimens of the genre.
Their current reincarnation follows a decade in which the duo pursued solo careers, and arrives on the heels of a reunion album, The Friends of Rachel Worth.
The Go-Betweens, 2000-style, serve up a familiar menu, though perhaps with a dash more of the relaxed insouciance that 20-odd years of experience bring.
The tall, languid Forster took the stage in a rust-coloured striped suit, and could easily pass for a somewhat louche snake-oil salesman in a travelling carnival. McLennan wore jeans and a sweat-shirt, grinning amiably as he thrashed chords from his guitar. The duo looked about as tense as a pair of cats snoozing in a hammock.
Unfortunately, while the The Go-Betweens had pulled in a rowdy cross-section of London's Antipodean subculture, I could not share their enthusiasm. The fact that they have built such a lengthy career on so limited a palette of melodic devices is a minor marvel in itself, while their long litany of songs based around the same featureless strumming rhythm gradually builds up an excruciating nails-down-a-blackboard effect.
There were a few pleasant pieces, though. Streets of Your Town is a classic specimen of Go-Betweenism, splicing a lyric about wife-battering to an agreeable country-pop tune, while it was almost possible to glimpse what it was about Spring Rain that once very nearly made it a hit single. Best of the lot was Forster's thespian-like treatment of his solo piece, Danger in the Past - or "P-a-a-a-h-h-hst", as he pronounces it - delivered as if he had been studying videos of Noël Coward in Las Vegas.
• At Manchester University (0161-275 2959) tonight.
