You Am I @ Entertainment Centre, November ’11

Opening for Cold Chisel put You Am I in front of a massive audience that may not otherwise have heard much of their music.

Sure, a few classic tracks may have made it to certain dubious “aussie hits” compilation records, and their performance at the ARIA’s a bunch of years ago may have lodged the name You Am I in a distant portion of the general masses cranium, however tonight in front of the first of 4 sellout shows at the Entertainment Centre You Am I really had a chance to win a whole bunch of new fans.

Oddly however, their show was completely lacklustre right from the onset. Track selection didn’t favour the hits aside from Purple Sneakers and alternate versions of the more easily recognisable numbers had even the biggest You Am I fan confused. Why they would pass up such an opportunity and perform such a sloppy set was anyones guess.

Tim Rogers seemed to be happily revelling in the obscurity his band has enjoyed for the best part of 20 years, a number of times taunting the crowd with snippets of what it’s been like for him in this “band of no-bodies”.

The mellow acoustic track “Heavy Heart” (a song that surely even the biggest bogan would know) was performed so differently and so far from the album version it resembled the song in name only.

For the You Am I fans tonight, the show was nothing out of the ordinary, however given the chance they had to turn a bunch of people onto what they are so capable of, You Am I failed miserably.