Andrew Strong performed at the Factory Theatre on Wednesday night to celebrate his 25th anniversary of the award-winning film The Commitments.
Andrew performed his set with a seven piece band and played The Commitments classic soundtrack in full. As Andrew came out on stage he said "How y'all doing out there" as the crowd cheers he says "I can see your all happy to be here".
Andrew kicked off the night with "Midnight hour" and flowed with "Baby, here I am"
After this he stopped and talked to his fans again, he said "oh man, I've never seen so many restaurants in my life. I tell you you're all spoilt for choice here!. It's very nice to be here tonight and thank you all for coming out, this is a bobby blue bland song this is called Yolanda". As Andrew plays "Yolanda" the crowd start singing and dancing and really get into the spirit of the gig.
As Andrew looks out into the crowd he says"how you're doing out there, Are you hot enough?" The crowd responds with "yeah" then Andrew days "Are you sweaty enough" crowd says yeah again. As Andrew smile he responds with " oh that's good "
Andrew proceeds to say "you have to incorporate the old with the new. This is my number 2 record and it is my favourite record. I like the beat side stuff, except i don't like that commercial stuff, but if I didn't have the commercial stuff I probably wouldn't be here tonight. It's a double edged sword, that's what I like to hear, this is called "Yolanda". The crowd yells "you have already played that" Then Andrew says "unless you want to hear that again sorry this is Grits and Groceries" . As the crowd hears the name of the next song they cheer and start singing along.
As Andrew is very interactive with the Audience he says "It's very good to be back here, it's also nice to be back here in the weather is nice. We just came from Ireland and we had the beast of the East thing, so we were very lucky to get here. Have you ever seen snow in Sydney before?" and the crowd yells "No". "that's what I thought this next song I'm going to do for you is called "Dark End of the Street". As the crowd kept on singing along with Andrew, it brought a great atmosphere into the venue and made you want to sing along to this song and made you wonder what was coming up next.
As the song comes to a finish Theo plays a G chord and Andrew says "that's a g major by the way" as the crowd laughs in amusement Andrew says "One more time Theo. This man came all the way from Hawaii ladies and gentlemen and it is a great honor to have him play here tonight".
Them Andrew announces, "alright I am going to get my little sister to sing a song for us tonight, Give It Up For Niamh Armstrong"
As Niamh takes the microphone she says "I would like to dedicate this song to Aretha Franklin and Gary they are in here somewhere. This one is for you, all of you" Then she sings "Day Dreaming. They proceed to play "Take me to the River"
Andrew stops and says "Are you having a good time down there" the crowd cheers then Andrew says "Well I'm having a great time up here" and plays an intrusmental piece.
"Alright yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry about that that's the only guitar solo I do in the set. The next song he performed with Eve was from The Commitments 2 album and was called "Thank you".
The next song he played was definitely a crowd favorite and everyone danced and sang along as Andrew sang "Mustang Sally". As the chorus came around the crowd chanted, "All you want to do is ride aound Sally, ride sally ride" it made you want to listen to the song 100 times over.
He proceed with " Give Me Some Loving". Then Andrew says "Thank you Sydney, good night love you all"
As the lights went out the band walked off stage. As the crowd stars cheering Andrew walked back out and says "Would you like some more" the crowd cheers again and Andrew say "no no no Sydney would you like some more" and the crowd cheers even louder then Andrew says I want you to embrace it I wanted to go yeah" and the crowd shouts "Yeah".
Andrew then introduced the band "On vocals we have Miss Niamh Strong, On keyboard we have Mr Joe, we have Brent on trumpet, Crystal on the saxophone, Theo on guitar, Omar on bass and last but not least Toby on drums."
To finish off a great night the band plays "I fell good by James Brown" to be followed by "Try a Little Tenderness." It was a great night and I definitely recommend going to one of the remaining shows!.
TICKETS - https://metropolistouring.com/andrew-strong-the-commitments/
PRESS RELEASE - https://www.twinmusix.com/andrew-strong-ireland
INTERVIEW - https://www.twinmusix.com/andrew-strong
