The Go-Betweens Archive

ARTICLES

DISCOGRAPHIES: THE GO-BETWEENS: ALBUMS | SINGLES | SOLO: ROBERT FORSTER | GRANT MCLENNAN

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

Articles index
1982	In between the Go-Betweens
1982	No shoe shops for Go-Betweens
1982	Send Me A Lullaby (review)
1982	King Trigger / The Go-Betweens
1982	The Gentle Three-Headed Monster
1982	The Go-Betweens / Laughing Clowns
1982	The Go-Betweens: Will this lullaby end their slumber?
1983	Orange Juice / The Go-Betweens
1983	Exiles from the lost Australian Dream
1983	The Smiths / The Go-Betweens
1983	Up From Down Under
1984	Money Can’t Buy You Love
1984	Remembrance and Visions of Hope
1986	Stars of the underground
1987	The Go-Betweens
1987	Of Skins and Hearts
1987	Power to imperfect pop
1988	The Go-Betweens
1988	Growing up gracefully
1988	Driving along Lovers Lane
1988	Love Notes
1988	You can go home again
1989	Go-Betweens aim to strike public chord
1989	The Go-Betweens
1989	Inbetween Days
1989	The Go-Betweens
1989	The Go-Betweens
1990	What you call change
1990	A Go-Between goes it alone
1992	Rock de Lux Questions the Go-Betweens Break-up
1992	Forster/McLennan: no Go-Betweens Reunion
1995	The Australian Go-Betweens Show: Forster Interview / Grant McLennan & Robert Forster at The Zoo
1996	Robert Forster, Grant McLennan and the Go-Betweens canon
1996	Gazing On A Sunny Afternoon
1996	The Go-Betweens
1997	Part Company — Again
1997	Interview with Robert Forster

The Go-Betweens
— Nottingham Trent Polytechnic, June 1989

David Swift — New Musical Express, 17 June 1989

Justice was heard to be done the other day when Streets Of Your Town followed Orange Crush on daytime Radio 1. The Go-Betweens first genuine near-hit may be 12 months old, but what a relief that soft-touch rock on the radio need not be the property of the same old bozos.

They have discovered, after too many years in these latitudes, that the best move is westward ho! Reports of success arrive at the right time because the Go-Betweens records are getting better and even more radio-friendly.

Their live show remains good, but not great. This melodic rock’n’roll troupe are well short of ‘angles’ so beloved of us all, there is no Stipe-like character to swing the uncommitted voter. Robert Forster seems more subdued now, especially as his longtime vocal partner Grant McLennan now seems to take more of the leads. His voice is now stronger, clearer, and cuts more ice on FM.

The more recent 16 Lovers Lane material fared best tonight. It and the preceding Tallulah collection stand as the most self-assured of their albums, and this comes across in-concert, as the songs run smoothly and sound a lot fuller, with no small thanks to multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown.

The venues acoustics fell well short of any decent standard (as usual) and thus two superb recordings Spirit Of A Vampyre and Bye Bye Pride were delivered as flat as a pancake, which was disappointing. But Was There Anything I Could Do? was excellent compensation, and Right Here proved that if exhumation of the back catalogue is needed for a hit, then full-scale grave-robbing should be in order. An army of record pluggers could yet do that song justice.

They spun into farthest history for encores of Karen and Cattle And Cane (a shaky duet). The mid-period songs rarely see light of day now. For the Go-Betweens, though, tomorrow may bring the paydirt, and betting against them may still be folly.