Triffids play three shows celebrating Born Sandy Devotional
The 30th anniversary celebrations of The Triffids’ classic album Born Sandy Devotional continues with memorial shows to their late leader and main songwriter David McComb.
The band have announced they are playing the record in its entirety at three shows in Victoria next month.
The shows are at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel on Tuesday December 6 and Wednesday December 7, followed by a sunset appearance at the Meredith Music Festival on Friday 9th.
Surviving Triffids – Martyn P Casey, Jill Birt, Alsy Macdonald, Rob McComb and Graham Lee – are joined by Chris Abrahams of The Necks on piano, Clare Moore from the mistLY on vibraphone, JP Shilo from Hungry Ghosts and The Blackeyed Susans on violin and guitar.
Guest vocalists are Alexander Gow from Oh Mercy, Rob Snarski from The Blackeyed Susans, JP Shilo and Gareth Liddiard from The Drones.
Support for the club shows will be the world premiere of a collaboration between JP Shilo and Chris Abrahams. The Tuesday night also includes SMB featuring Handsome Steve Miller.
The remaining Triffids members already performed the album in London at the Islington Town Hall on October 21 with some of the above names.
Lee says of the Born Sandy Devotional shows, “David McComb, who was the driving force behind this collection of superb songs tied together by the theme of unrequited love (mostly his), died in 1999 literally of a broken heart.
“We, the remaining members of the band, get together infrequently with the sole purpose of remembering our friend and brother by performing his songs.”
The Triffids formed in Perth in 1978 and soon relocated to London. They achieved popularity throughout Europe and became the first Australian group since the Seekers to feature on the cover of New Musical Express. They soon received acclaim as one of the best and most influential acts to come out of Australia.
Lee says that the close-knit band were “none more so than 1985 when we recorded Born Sandy Devotional.” Sessions began in a tiny recording studio in Farringdon, London in August 1985 with producer Gil Norton. A plaque outside the building was later installed to mark this occasion.
McComb said later, “When we finished Born Sandy Devotional I knew it was the best thing we’d ever done, there was no question about it. The writing was much more autobiographical than anything I’d done before, I felt quite close to the subject matter. I found myself almost following the idea of fidelity as a complete all-consuming faith, to give you some sort of direction or something.”
The record with its emotional love songs was aimed at scoring them a major record deal in the UK.
It failed to do that despite the inclusion of requited love songs as the classic Wide Open Road, Stolen Property and Lonely Stretch. However Island Records would sign them up for Calenture a year. Born Sandy Devotional peaked at #37 I Australia and #18 in Sweden.
The album title came from a song about a girl called Sandy, which didn’t make the final cut.
The cover photo shows Mandurah, Western Australia — now a large urban centre — as it appeared in 1961.
McComb died in Melbourne in 1999 but his music continues to be discovered by new generations.
In June 2006, England’s Domino Records released a remastered version with eight bonus tracks selected by Lee, the video for Wide Open Road, and a 40-page booklet with copies of McComb’s handwritten lyrics. It entered some European charts.
On August 11, 2007, SBS Australia aired a one-hour documentary on The Triffids and Born Sandy Devotional as the 1980s’ representative of their Great Australian Albums series.
In 2008 The Triffids were inducted into the Australian Rock And Roll Hall of Fame by Nick Cave.
In October 2010 Born Sandy Devotional was listed at #5 in the book 100 Best Australian Albums.
Last week they were inducted into the WAM Hall of Fame in Perth.