The Church at Fine Line, Minneapolis (23 Mar 2023)

Australia’s rock band The Church stopped by the Fine Line, in Minneapolis, last night, to play tracks from their new album The Hypnogogue (Communicating Vessels).



Transmission’s DJ Jake Rudh played a variety of British 60s music videos before the band came on stage. Fans at the show were, of course, on the older scale… who had fun trying to guess the band on the screen (Rolling Stones, Monkees, David Bowie, etc.) The odd-band out seemed to be Chromatics.



When The Church came on stage to an introduction background music, they were greeted with a huge applause. The band proceeded to playing a two plus hour set. This band didn’t need a warm-up band, because they had 18 albums worth of music to choose from.



I first heard of the band on Dave Kendall’s 120 Minutes on MTV. He was a Church fan and played “Ripple”, which had become my favorite Church song. By that time, in 1992, the band was already an “old” band.



So, yes, the band’s been around, with many rotating band members… but the one constant is lead singer and bassist Steve Kilbey. Currently the band features Kilbey, Brisbane’s Ian Haug on lead guitars, Melbourne’s Ashley Naylore on guitars, Birmingham (USA) Jeffrey Cain on keys, and Camden (New South Wales) Nicholas Meredith on drums (who is subbing for regular Church drummer Tim Powles – who had VISA issues).


Kilbey seemed pretty pleased with the new drummer and even joked that when they return back to Australia, that the Church will be a double drums band!



Kilbey also seemed more jaded (but jokingly) since the last time we saw him 2018. It’s fun, the audience loved it.



Since the tour is to promote The Hypnogogue, most of the new songs had introduction from Kilbey, who described it as somewhat of a Sci-Fi story from the future… about a place called The Hypnogogue. Some songs had characters from Hypnogogue, like about a Korean scientists called Sun Kim Jong, who invented a song extraction machine. From what we heard live, the Hypnogogue seems like a weird place that only Kilbey could bring to life.



Of course, as you know most fans were there for the “hits”, meaning “Metropolis” and “Under the Milky Way” were really well received. For Milky Way, Kilbey introduced it, “Ladies and gentlemen, this next song needs no introduction. Should have no f***ing introduction. Should just be played, and that’s that. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here is that song, that you want to hear.”



Yes, of course, that is the song everyone wanted to hear. “Under the Milky Way” is the band’s signature song. The song was #24 on the USA Billboard charts and was massive in 1989. It’s a great song, and we were reminded how good it is, when you hear it on the cult film Donnie Darko.

Remaining Tour Dates