TORONTO - If there was any question about Canadian J.D. Fortune's place in veteran Aussie funk-rock act INXS, the answer became perfectly clear on Wednesday night as the frontman and band performed their their first full gig in Canada in three years.
After a stilted and forced first hour, the group consisting of the three Farriss brothers - Andrew on guitar/keyboards, Jon on drums, and Tim on lead guitar - guitarist-saxophonist Kirk Pengilly, and bassist Garry Gary Beers, finally hit their stride close to the top of the hour two with a striking, stripped down, and acoustic version of Don't Change.
The significance of this was that the bearded Fortune - who caused confusion a couple of years ago when he erroneously claimed he had been fired by the band after touring with them for two years since winning the frontman spot in the reality-TV show Rockstar:INXS - wasn't actually part of the performance.
In fact, it was just Andrew, Jon and Pengilly, with two female backup singers.
And later Fortune made one of several outfit changes into a T-shirt that spelled out the word, 'Featuring...."
The implication from both sides seemed to be that Fortune has publicly acknowledged his position as a gun for hire, rather than a full-fledged band member.
"Life gets a little strange sometimes - thank you guys for being here tonight," Fortune told the audience of about 1,000 people as the show came to a close.
The Wednesday night performance was ostensibly to push the latest INXS album, Original Sin, which found the group reworking their hits with a variety of singers including Fortune. (Variety being the first clue).
But they really didn't do much reinventing in the live setting, although Tricky's recording of Mediate was played at one point while the lyrics were displayed in black and white on the video backdrop.
Really though, the crowd-pleasing aspect of the two-hour performance picked up significantly in the second half as the band, initially dressed in white shirts, black suits and ties - changed into more casual clothes and finally broke loose with hit after hit that got hips shaking and people singing - Need You Tonight, Bitter Tears, Not Enough Time, Disappear, Original Sin, What You Need, New Sensation, Never Tear Us Apart, and an great encore of Kick, By My Side and a reprieve of Don't Change with Fortune this time.
The show opened with the drumming instrumental, Drum Opera, featuring just the three Farriss siblings before they were joined by the rest of the group for Suicide Blonde, The Stairs, Devil Inside, Mystify Me, and the lesser known Listen Like Thieves, Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain), and Love Is (What I Say).
Fortune, to his credit, hit his stride with Afterglow and Pretty Vegas, two of the songs from INXS' post-Rockstar 2005 album, Switch, and is a real live wire on stage even if nowhere close to matching the intensity and sexiness of original singer Michael Hutchence, who died in 1997.
Frankly, not many can.
It was, in fact, Pengilly, who brought the sexy to much of the performance with his stellar sax playing especially when he jumped up behind Jon Farriss' drum riser for his moment in the spotlight.
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