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"The rows of chairs on the floor should have been a tipoff. The New York stop on the current U.S. tour by Australian sparkling-guitar band the Church &amp;#x2014; on August 10th at Irving Plaza, where it is usually standing or dancing or nothing &amp;#x2014; would not be the usual twang and levitation. In fact, the only electric guitar on stage all night was Steve Kilbey&amp;apos;s Fender bass, while guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper left their trademark Stratocasters and Rickenbackers in storage for this trip, instead using a variety of six- and twelve-string acoustics, supplemented by mandolin, Koppes&amp;apos; occasional Dylanesque blowing on a harmonica and a guest harpist. But drummer Tim Powles played a regular kit, with characteristic force. And there was a compelling, climbing momentum to the night that was electric in all but the amp count and climaxed in the encore &amp;#x2014; to the audience&amp;apos;s grateful disbelief &amp;#x2014; with the first-ever live reading in New York of the Church&amp;apos;s 1981 jangling gem, &amp;quot;The Unguarded Moment.&amp;quot;\n\nThis tour, which ends August 20th in San Francisco, is a traveling version of the Church&amp;apos;s 2004 album, El Momento Descuidado, on which the band revisited songs from their quarter-century catalog in acoustic form. Many of those were in the set tonight , including &amp;quot;Tristesse,&amp;quot; from 1985&amp;apos;s Heyday and the Church&amp;apos;s solo American hit single, 1988&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Under the Milky Way.&amp;quot; Tonight, the group expanded that conceit, unplugging tracks from its fine, new electric record, Uninvited, Like the Clouds (&amp;quot;Block,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Day 5&amp;quot;). Kilbey also paid tribute to Grant McLennan of fellow Aussies the Go-Betweens, who died on May 6th, with a version of &amp;quot;Providence,&amp;quot; from the 1991 album the two made together as Jack Frost.\nThe Church are, at heart and their best, psychedelic electricians, and their full-volume shows in recent years have been ringing endorsements for their stubborn longevity. But these stripped-back arrangements &amp;#x2014; virtually &amp;quot;Elizabethan,&amp;quot; as Kilbey wisecracked at one point &amp;#x2014; showed how the Church continue to excel as writers as well as janglers. And don&amp;apos;t fret: There was still plenty of reverb.\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/live-review-david-fricke-on-the-church-in-new-york-20020810>