May 7, 2023

Reservoir Dogs & Pulp Fiction Soundtrack – 6 May 2023, Auckland Civic Theatre (Concert Review)

The Soundtracks From Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs And Pulp Fiction kicked off with energy, fun, a stage full of dark suits, shades and guns, and the distinctive bass line of Little Green Bag.

Liberty Stage’s curated supergroup of singers and the “Big Band Royale” rose to the challenge of covering a variety of cool retro songs from two iconic movies in a concert that was fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

The first half covered Reservoir Dogs. Laughton Kora slayed Joe Tex’ I Gotcha before the entire ensemble launched into crowd favourite Stuck In The Middle With You, the first singalong of the night. Milan Borich boogied around the stage wearing a gun holster whilst gory scenes from the movie played on the big screen. Harvest Moon provided a plaintive interlude prior to the powerful rock drums of Magic Carpet Ride.

Pulp Fiction soundtrack Julia Deans prefaced her guitar-accompanied country-feel Fool For Love by asking “So how are you, motherfuckers?” The motherfuckers (mostly middle-aged punters, watching middle-aged musos playing retro songs from 30 year old movies) seemed to be just fine and having a whale of a time. They enthusiastically danced in the aisles, singing along to the final two songs from Reservoir Dogs – joining in with the “Ooga Chaka”s of Blue Swede’s Hooked On A Feeling and Harry Nilsson’s Coconut.

While the Coronation was starting up over in London, we queued for drinks and anticipated the second half. The soundtrack to Pulp Fiction has sold over 6 million copies since release in 1994 and features some absolute bangers. What stood out amongst those were some absolutely magnificent instrumentals by the Big Band Royale – a group put together for this show. It was a privilege to see this calibre of musician and great to see New Zealand talent showcased. Mareea Paterson on bass guitar oozed swagger and Michael Barker gave it everything on drums. But while Charles was being crowned, it was the ever-versatile Finn Scholes who reigned supreme at the Civic, deftly moving from percussion to impeccable trumpet solos in the distinctive set opener Misirlou and later for Comanche, and even providing impressive whistling accompaniment to Julia Deans for If Love Is A Red Dress!

Standout covers from the second half were Laughton Kora’s commendably soulful Let’s Stay Together (Al Green) and contrastingly upbeat Jungle Boogie (Kool & the Gang), Julia Deans’ fabulous tribute to Dusty Springfield with Son Of A Preacher Man, Booga Beazley’s Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon (Urge Overkill) and, of course, Chuck Berry’s You Never Can Tell.

There was a dance off between six couples, some of whom were dressed up, but none of whom quite exuded the cool of John Travolta and Uma Thurman in the movie. A huge trophy was eventually awarded to a mum and her son, who was definitely way too young to have watched Tarantino’s R18 films… even the clips on screen showed violence, drug taking and the gimp!

Could you ever get tired of You Never Can Tell? Probably not. It was definitely a crowd favourite and seemed to be a band favourite too, with Julia Deans leaving the stage to twist amongst the punters by one of the Civic’s famous lions in the unofficial mosh pit. The encore reprise of Stuck In The Middle With You had the entire audience dancing (who knew there were so many Stealers Wheel fans?), before being spat out onto Queen Street, chatting about how they really needed to watch these movies again.

Julia Deans finished up by saying “You guys have been fucking great and we’ve had a fucking ball!” Well, Julia, you and your ensemble were fucking great too and the whole night was a fucking ball, from start to finish. Thanks, Liberty Stage – you really know how to put together a great line-up and fabulous shows. This is one gig I’ll remember for a long time… and two soundtracks I’ll be playing again at home.