Review by Steve Bennett

Their Comeback Special is a mixture of their own compositions and lyric-swap ditties, which are usually the first refuge of the lazy, but are here employed with some style - and so sparingly – that they don’t need to be forgiven for it.

As with any musical night out, the support band were something of a disappointment, as the threesome came out in skimpy vests revealing out-of-shape torsos and, with bad, angry accents, announced themselves as Polish band 3-Sum. And a suitably poor Europop song with crude lyrics and deeply unsexy dance moves ensued.

It was all rather obvious stuff, and did a disservice to the slickly professional songs they perform under their own names. Mostly, they tend to take their inspiration from the mundane, then put it to a folk-slash-rock-and-rock soundtrack. We come to expect songs about big topics such as love and loss from our musicians; with the Axis the minutiae of a trip to a titty bar is just as likely to form the lyrics.

The tunes are toe-tapping, and the lyrics witty; the best being the brilliantly silly Bird Plane, performed as a serious piano ballad, despite the fact that lead singer Jordan is pretending to be a half-avian, half-mechanical hybrid.

Their version of a James Bond theme about a villain with a much less chronic disability than 007’s normal diabolic foes is nicely done, as is their updating of what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are up to nowadays. Their series of instructional songs, set to the lyrics of The Fray’s How To Save A Life, and rejigged version of Eye Of The Tiger both show how you can use other people’s tunes without being too obvious about it.

Not everything shines quite so brilliantly, and the emotional impact of the music is deadened by the limitations of playing a Fringe venue that insists on a volume cap, so they can never properly rock out. But their tour-de-force showstopper, which more-or-less proves all hit songs are the same, is still mighty impressive.

Between songs the banter is up and down, not quite as well-developed as the musical element, but not without the occasional good line. With the geeky one, keyboardist Benny, the dumb one, guitarist Lee, and the marginal authority figure Jordan, the pattern for their relationship is pretty well-established.

Still relatively new, they are a more-than competent, and occasionally brilliant, trio offering an undemanding hour of lively fun. Maybe one day Tripod will be known as ‘that Australian musical trio who aren’t Axis Of Awesome’. Not yet, but maybe…

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Review date: 1 Jan 2008
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett