INXS join Rob Thomas onstage
The crowd at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne went crazy when Rob Thomas drawled during the encore that he was a huge fan of matchbox twenty and that this was usually the time of the night when he would play some of their songs. “But tonight,” he said, “I’ve got something even better.” At which point INXS walked on, and played “Precious Heart” and “Don't Change”. Thomas of course is one of those on INXS’s self-tribute record, and it must be said that his rendition of “Precious Heart” was as good as the original. Certainly the volume of the scream from the crowd indicated that. Thomas show, through Michael Coppel Presents was impeccable: even those fans who found “Cradlesong” lacking in continuity would have realized that in the live context, the album made sense. If the stripped-down acoustic rendition of the classic “Ever the Same” left more than one audience member a little glassy-eyed, then “As Her Diamonds” from the album was one of the night’s highlights, as was his rendition of “Smooth” which of course he wrote for Carlos.
