Opinion
Dreamy songs, dirty jokes: Engelbert raises roof at sold-out Perth show
Mark Naglazas
Journalist and sub editorEngelbert Humperdinck: The Last Waltz
Riverside Theatre, Perth
3.5 stars
Engelbert Humperdinck’s voice has aged, but has also matured in the range of emotion it can convey.Credit: Mark Naglazas
The wheelchairs and walking devices piled up outside the Riverside Theatre instantly lowered expectations that Engelbert Humperdinck’s final Australian tour would shake up the audience in the way his great rival Tom Jones did earlier this year — not unless the famed Roman Catholic was planning to top The Last Waltz and Quando, Quando, Quando with a miracle.
Divine intervention wasn’t necessary.
The moment the 88-year-old confidently shuffled onto the stage the packed house went nuts — well, as nutty as a crowd can when they have to take care negotiating the precariously steep steps of the Convention Centre theatre.
While his fellow octogenarian Jones exhilarated local audiences (and annoyed more than a few) by breaking up his greatest hits with songs from his latest album that reflected on ageing, loss and death, Humperdinck veered only occasionally off his well-trod path as he worked his way through his back catalogue of easy-listening classics, performing songs so well known and beloved — A Man Without Love, Ten Guitars, Blue Spanish Eyes, Release Me — that the audience sang along at the top of their voices, English musical hall style.
And while Jones had nothing to do with the underpants-throwing nonsense of yore Humperdinck fully embraced his Austin Powers-era eye-rolling naughtiness, telling the kind of old-school gags that would have a younger performer dumped into the sin bin.
But every joke — no matter how old, how obvious, how Benny Hill-ish — went down a treat because Humperdinck still has the charm and elegance that made him such a fun rival to the cooler, more physical, more overtly sexual Jones, who, in typical Engelbert style, he playfully mocked and celebrated in one delicious bit.
Maybe not such a treat when he interrupted his most famous song and the one that launched his career, Please Release Me, to exclaim to the audience, “I can’t believe that song is 58 years old!” We all laughed, but nobody wants to hear a song is that old when you know all the words by heart and are enthusiastically singing along.
While his famously melodious voice is a long way from what it once was, those well-worn Humperdinck vocal cords imbued a note of sadness in his most romantic numbers, reminding us that even in old age – his and most of the audience – love and desire still flicker.
A still-strapping, still-handsome man. Credit: Mark Naglazas
Indeed, the most touching moment of the show was his version of Kris Kristofferson’s For the Good Times, a melancholy classic that reflects on the end of a relationship and even a life.
Instead of the soaring super-smooth vocals of old, the nearly 90-year-old voice, cracking and straining but still full of emotion and lived experience, captured something the younger Englebert would not have.
And at the end of the night those fans not waiting for their wheelchairs and walkers rushed to the stage to get up close and personal with this still-strapping, handsome man in the bright red shirt and tight pants who happily obliged with handshakes and famous red handkerchiefs.
Engelbert’s tour is called The Last Waltz. But on last night’s performance — energetic, engaging, amusing — it will be more of a case of Quando, Quando, Quando, as in “when will you be back?”
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