Eve Jeffery
According to their Facebook page Louie and Patrick play ‘timid songs with cheesy riffs’, but last night’s performance at the Sounds of Simon fundraiser at the Byron Community Centre was neither cheesy nor timid.
Thirty-two years to the day that Simon and Garfunkel played to a packed Sydney sportsground, local lads Louie Swain and Patrick Hetherington played their rendition of The Only Living Boy in New York to a gobsmacked audience. ‘We’ve never had such loud applause’, said Patrick once the crowd quieted, to which those gathered responded which cheers and more clapping.
Having played together for nearly five years, and releasing two albums – We Thought A Kitten Might Lift Our Mother’s Spirits and We Are Not Convinced There Has Been Any Significant Improvement, and after performing in a multitude of acts spanning across music of all genres, Louie and Patrick have recently returned to the simple and honest pop songs of old – and the world is a better place because of it.
The Sounds of Simon event was the latest instalment in the ongoing effort to raise funds to maintain the centre’s grand piano. The lads along with Ash Bell, Julie Oliver, Guy Kachel, Luke Vassella, Mookx Hanley, Liora Claff, Thierry Fossemalle, Steve Russell, Pete Wilkins and Guy Dutton kept the Baby Booming audience transfixed with nostalgia and simply great music.
The boys finished up with Paul Simon’s Graceland and I would have no hesitation in saying they performed the classic better than it has ever been done in the history of the universe – to say the crowd loved it is a gross understatement – there was no standing ovation for this extraordinarily talented duo as everyone was too busy sitting and stamping their feet and screaming for more.
Stay tuned…
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