SYDNEY FESTIVAL - YOUNG, HARD AND SOLO

January 18th 2012 11:42 pm | Music | Review - By Diana Simmonds

He has a wonderful voice and a wicked sense of humour.

iOTA -YOUNG, HARD AND SOLO, Playhouse Theatre, Sydey Opera House; 17-21 at 9pm, 21 January at midnight. Photos: Prudence Upton.

AT AN HOUR and 15 minutes, iOTA's semi-solo concert show is sharp and sweet in equal measure. He's accompanied by a first-rate trio of guitars, bass and drums (no program: sorry guys), plus The Geek and a guest appearance by The Rabbit. After the immense effort of the recent Smoke and Mirrors, this Festival outing seems to be in the form of a mini-retrospective and regroup before the next big creative push.

Young, Hard and Solo is raucous, rude, witty, clever, fun, sad and utterly charming. If more rock stars where more like iOTA there'd be mass outbreaks of uncontrolled groupie behaviour, so it's as well that he's unique. He has a wonderful voice and a wicked sense of humour. He's also an iconoclast and, on stage, unafraid to push himself and the audience to the limits. On opening night, the audience was thrilled to go along with him: obediently reciting ever more outrageous and silly stuff. The reason for the obedience quickly becomes evident: the rewards are delicious.

As well as larking about with stories and chat, torturing The Geek and avoiding The Rabbit, iOTA strings together a series of sparkling songs from his past 10+ years and the only drawback is the venue: a dance cavern (or The Studio) would be much better equipped to cater for the real urge to get up and boogie. Sitting politely in a theatre is restraining to the point of pain.

Much whooping and hollering greets most songs - this audience knows of his break-out performance in Hedwig and the Angry Inch; more saw The Rocky Horror Show and even more adored the various incarnations of Smoke and Mirrors. He also tripped a whimsically melancholy trail through his earlier life as an indie-underground fixture on the Sydney pub rock circuit; all of which have now gone or closed, as he points out.

His Batman and Robin sketch-song is hilarious and depraved; his tribute to Mama Cass is both soulful and hideously apposite and when he takes up his battered acoustic guitar for a solo version of Come Back For Me, it's magic. However, iOTA seems to be a different performer than he was a few years ago; he did his Frank'n'Furter segment in a way that was down hard and dirty. As well as androgynously sexy as hell, he made it dangerous enough to cause wriggles of unease and the hots in every gender in the house. He might not want to do it again, but if I were thinking of restaging The Rocky Horror Show, iOTA would be the only choice for Frank. Although that t-shirt would have to go.