Tex Perkins & Tim Rogers (T’n’T) / Rebecca Barnard / Loene Carmen

Andy J Ryan Mar 20, 2023

Tim Rogers & Tex Perkins - Annandale Hotel, 15 September 2006
Australian rock icons, Tim Rogers and Tex Perkins, join forces touring the country, playing songs and telling tales from their new album My Better Half.†

Loene Carmen once played Sally Anne Huckstep in Blue Murder; Carmen's mournful blues-tinged songs may not get her onto 60 Minutes, but will ensure her musical career suffers a far less sinister fate than her onscreen alter ego.

Rebecca Barnard was complaining that touring with the T'n'T boys was indeed hard work. She had gotten her first pimple in 20 years from all the late nights and carousing, plus the boys both tried to crack onto her every night. It was fair to say most of the sold-out audience were saving their attention for the headline act. The crowd resembled and sounded like rowdy post-work drinkers rather than music connoisseurs. Barnard valiantly played on, pleasantly surprising with I'm Empty from her former band Rebecca's Empire and wishing us well with a knowing, "you'll like them, they are real funny".

So to T'n'T, Tim Rogers and Tex Perkins. The stage itself was decked out like some suburban swinger's pad, well at least the bathroom of one. A bar better stocked than the airport branch of Downtown Duty Free to one side (with obliging barmaid), and the rest of the stage decorated with a coat rack, cast iron bath, mirror, sink, toothbrushes, a toilet, T'n'T embossed bath towels, candles and flowers.

The pair waltzed out with as much decorum as they could muster, wrapped in embroidered initialled bathrobes. "Welcome to our bathroom." The kinship, respect and comfortable rapport between monsieurs Perkins and Rogers was something to behold. The two cheeky buggers would scarcely believe their luck, playing with a symphony orchestra at their fourth gig, and a world tour, an album and a sold-out national tour all coming within a matter of months. The made-of-beer idea that grew legs and just kept on walking. It is as if that on any given Friday night we could find the pair of them knocking back a few drinks, belting out a few songs, having a few laughs, a bit of a yarn and getting a bit off their chests, whether the 400 of us were there or not.

Tim and Tex traded songs like they would shouts. Unspoken respect and a fair whack of mutual admiration seeped through. While Tex has forged his way through his various musical incarnations with an impeccable swagger and bravado, he lays himself open with Half of Nothing and Here I Am and a stark version of the Beasts' Can't Say No. Our Tim wears his heart a bit up from the cuff. The sting of separation is all too evident in You Should See Her Now and Hate This City, before a couple of You Am I numbers, Weeds, and a vivid version of Heavy Heart. The two playing together was a display of mateship at its finest, singing their problems through, with each offering the other a comforting harmony, a shoulder to cry on and to strum with.

There was of course mischief in bundles, from their co-written songs Everyone Hates You When You're Popular to the lads putting their life stories to song with Semi-Auto-Bio-Duo -"Cause my girlfriend was a stripper, but that ain't why I quit her". The boys have an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of music to draw upon; in one outro they challenged each other to sing the song's harmony firstly in Eagles style, then Bee Gees style, then "ummm ...Bread? Who else are the heroes of modern harmony? Well, apart from us." A heckler in the crowd was dealt with cuttingly: "There's someone in the crowd having their first ever drink tonight." The unlucky chap was wearing a Kiss t-shirt, which prompted the pair to mime each of the Kiss members' eye make-up, which then segued nicely into their lyrical analysis of the work of Paul Stanley - "who really is bald and gay" - via their cover of Come on and Love Me.

Their cover of Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night was introduced with "you people will be the jury; we propose that this is the dirtiest most scurrilous song, sung by rock's most debauched fellow". With the evidence tendered in the lyrics "spread your wings and let me come inside" and "don't say a word my virgin child, just let your inhibitions run wild", the fair and true people gathered didn't need much more convincing. We were humbly thanked for our attendance, with Tim suggesting "if I had to come and watch two guys with acoustic guitars I would want to stab myself in the eye". But these weren't merely two guys strumming the nylon; they are an almost perfect pairing of personalities.

Returning for an encore, Tim graciously remarked "You've been so good to us; now we want to give something back, an education. Take it away Professor Tex..."

Education proved an understatement, as what followed was a 20-odd minute bawdy foray into the origins, techniques, facts and everything you ever needed to know about... cunnilingus.