By Brian Wise.
The Waterboys – The Palais Theatre, Melbourne, Saturday May 16, 2026
With a history dating back to the early 1980s, a catalogue of 16 albums and a string of memorable hits, expectations were understandably high for The Waterboys first Melbourne show for more than a decade. But sometimes expectations can be stymied by other factors. In this case they were the PA system and an interloper from the audience.
So, this gig turned out to be weirder than anyone, including band leader Mike Scott, might have predicted. The sound problems were not resolved until an impromptu soundcheck on stage half an hour into the set. Then, an overzealous fan jumped onstage, stopped the show and had to be removed by security. It all contributed to interrupting the momentum of what should have been a more satisfying evening.
You have to feel for the musicians involved when they have to battle dodgy sound, which is what the band fought in the first portion of the show. It seemed like an uncharacteristic fault at The Palais, which usually has excellent sound. Much of the show was also in full on rock ‘n’ roll mode – which might have surprised some – and this set its own demands. The sound system seemed to cope much better on slower the more acoustic numbers. (It was also a bit of a shock having just returned from a recent trip to the USA where all the concert venues we attended had pristine sound).
Mike Scott’s current 5-piece outfit features James Hallawell on keyboards, Aongus Ralston on bass and drummer Eamon Ferris. Augmenting the line-up was Memphis/Nashville keyboardist Brother Paul Brown on Hammond B3 organ and Keytar, who added to the entertainment with his lively persona. Clad in a colourful shirt, neon red trousers and black cowboy hat, Scott remains a dynamic frontman. Brother Paul is even more lively, almost stealing the show with his bout on the Keytar (shades of Herbie Hancock!). The dual keyboards also added their own additional demand to the mix, which for the first half hour wasn’t always clear. There is no longer the subtlety of fiddle and saxophone, as heard on many of the group’s studio albums, to balance the ambience. It could be a line-up that seems better suited to larger venues better able to cope with what is happening on stage.
Set against the backdrop of the cover of the 2015 album Modern Blues, Scott elected to start the performance with the new single ‘Don’t Even Have To Say His Name’, containing some powerful invective against the current US president. This seemed to set the tempo for much of what was to follow.
By the time they reached ‘A Girl Called Johnny’, which saw Scott move to keyboards, it was time to take the mood down. Unfortunately, this was when the sound was beset with distortion, which required the song to stop for several minutes while roadies scurried to help Scott to solve the problem.
Perhaps the high point of the set then arrived 50 minutes in – after ‘Medicine Bow’, ‘Nashville, Tennessee’ and ‘Strange Boat’ – with a full-on rendition of the classic ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ which had the audience up and dancing. The enthusiasm continued with ‘This Is the Sea’ before Scott introduced a bracket of 5 songs from the latest studio album Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, the standout of which was ‘I Don’t Know How I Made It’, sung by Scott with enough empathy to suggest that he identifies with the theme. Brave move some would say, introducing songs from an album that most people in the audience might not have even heard but it was a worthwhile interlude (even more so if it encouraged people to discover the latest studio album and its companion, Rips From The Cutting Room Floor).
Later, during ‘Don’t Bang The Drum,’ three male security personnel had to remove one female fan from the stage as she attempted to embrace Scott and was very reluctant to leave. This is not as easy to do as you might think these days, but they eventually shepherded the intruder off stage left. It could have been a scary thing for Scott, and I am sure questions will be asked about how the fan managed to get on stage in the first place. It was yet another factor that interrupted the momentum.
Luckily, that momentum was picked up with the encore that included ‘Whole Of The Moon’, which finished the concert on an upbeat and positive vibe. In the end, it was a gig that should have been great, derailed somewhat by things that the band couldn’t control.
WATERBOYS SETLIST
- Don’t Even Have to Say His Name
- Where the Action Is
- Glastonbury Song
- How Long Will I Love You?
- Ladbroke Grove Symphony
- A Girl Called Johnny
- Medicine Bow
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Strange Boat
- Fisherman’s Blues
- This Is the Sea
- Live in the Moment, Baby
- The Tourist
- Hopper’s on Top (Genius)
- I Don’t Know How I Made It
- Golf, They Say
- Don’t Bang a Drum [1, 2]
Encore
- Spirit
- The Pan Within
- The Whole of the Moon