Review: THE MILK CARTON KIDS – ADELAIDE GUITAR FESTIVAL 2023 at Her Majesty's Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Thursday 13th July 2023.

At first sight, you can pick The Milk Carton Kids as part of tradition with such names as the Everly Brothers, and Simon and Garfunkel. Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale are two personable young men with guitars, gentle melodies, quiet lyrics, and the familiarity which comes from a long partnership. They formed in 2012, after the heyday of the American revival, and have a firm following. But this is 2023 and there is a strong sense both of nostalgia and regret in what they do.

“Graceland is a ghost town tonight... the sun goes down on the Dolly Parton Bridge. The one-time home of soul takes our country’s final breath.” That’s just one line that comes out, as they sing. As it is they sing so closely to each other, eyes on each other, close to the single microphone, that sometimes the intriguing words disappear. Go online and check out All the Time in the World to Kill, and the title track of their new album, I Only See the Moon. Joey does the talking and made a strong point that they were playing the last concert of their tour, in a beautiful venue to an appreciative audience. They received two standing ovations, and I for one would love to hear them at The Gov.

The other performer on the stage was Vera Sola. She’s bright and energetic, with a superb voice and a very individual guitar technique. Her songs are great and she has the chutzpah to call her husband, Kenneth Pattengale, to join her for a brilliant song about watching your ex walk out of your life, while you tell him to put the lights on so you get a better view of his departing back. She then anchored the entire show to its past with Leonard Cohen’s Famous Blue Raincoat.

I was too late to buy any of their CDs, and baulk at paying fifty dollars for a T-shirt, but I’ve been catching up with their music online. While they had previously toured ten and eight years ago, and gathered a loyal company of fans, it’s through Spotify and the like that most people found them.

Later, in the foyer, I was talking to a woman who had flown from Tasmania just for the night, just for them. She agreed that the songs are steeped in melancholy but commented that it is sometimes nice to be sad in the company of other sad people. The Greeks had a word for it.

If you are curious about their name, the US has had for years a policy of putting the faces of missing children on milk cartons. Have you seen this child? The idea must have spread to the eastern states of Australia as I recall an advertisement for hot water supply where the subject spends so much time in the shower that, when he comes out, his face is on the milk carton in his kitchen.