I was running a little late due to an unfortunate public transport mix up so I missed the first few minutes of the 2019 edition of Rockwiz’s Really, Really Good Friday show at Hamer Hall on St Kilda Rd at the Melbourne Arts Centre. Things had got off to a raucous start when I did arrive with MC, series co-creator and co-writer Brian Nankervis doing the expanded contestant sorting quiz they do at the live shows. It is testament to the quality and longevity of RockWiz that three years after their cancellation by SBS, their live shows, which tour the country twice a year and do Bluesfest as well as the Melbourne Good Friday shows are still roaringly popular. This year’s Good Friday show sold much faster than 2018, selling out a few weeks beforehand.

It is very impressive that their live shows are as good as any major touring stadium act you might want to name. The music professionalism, the entertainment level, it’s all there. It doesn’t hurt either that its anchors are the magnanimous and warm Brian Nankervis and Julia Zemiro, who is now rapidly approaching national treasure status if she hasn’t already and is one of the biggest and most significant female tv stars in Australia. Both are spontaneously very witty as well, not justA rock music trivia game show hosted by French born Australian, Julia Zemiro. relying on the scripts. Proceedings are always helped along by the contestants also, some of whom prove to be real characters, as is the case with Ben tonight, a long-haired young livewire with an impressively extensive musical knowledge.

At live RockWiz shows, ten potential contestants are chosen from the audience, brought onto the stage to have their musical knowledge tested, the two most successful of which become the evening’s contestants on each panel of three along with two musical and entertainment guests each. This show, the format is a little different to previous shows, with a memory game based on twenty-five-odd album covers displayed on the giant electronic screen behind them. The screen is a new addition to the RockWiz stage, with full graphics videos created for the various musical performances, giving the show a more polished, high production feel.

Which is a change from prior years and shows in a good way, leading this one to feel different and therefore new and fresh. Not that it necessarily needed to, I and I think everybody else would have been happy enough with the familiar format. With contestants sorted, it was on to introducing each of the three musical guests, or fiveIan Moss performing live. if you include Vika and Linda though they are part of the RockWiz family, and two comedians. The first of which was the rather thunderously legendary Ian Moss of Cold Chisel, who for those such as myself hadn’t seen him before, was alarmingly good, with powerful, booming voice and masterful guitar playing.

Next came the equally startlingly talented Casey Donovan, who we were fortunate enough to witness singing Proud Mary with her spectacularly strong and beautiful voice. The lady can SING, my, what an amazing talent. Highly talented Superjesus rocker Sarah McLeod was next cab off the rank, showcasing yet again another impressive set of tonsils with McLeod’s soaring, shimmerig vocal tones and vibe. It was very exciting with each introduction, RockWiz really pulled out the big guns this time with some very fine performers. A change in direction came next with comedienne Judith Lucy, last year it being Bob Franklin, a comic is an established part of the lineup.

We were treated to a very funny excerpt from Lucy’s Melbourne Internatonal Comedy Festival show which was running at the time, at which point we had our four other panelists and the quiz proper got underway. From memory the quiz format as per the tv show was somewhat truncated at the 2018 end of year RockWiz Revue at the Palais and last year’s Good Friday show, the two others that I have attended, though my memory is not to be entirely trusted, but this year we got the full thing which was hugely enjoyable and as previously mentioned, gifted with some hilarious banter between sharp-witted contestant Ben and Julia Zemiro, replete with salacious, cheeky sexual innuendo!

Rather than the usual questions of what the first albums the contestants and guests bought or first concerts they went to were, at the Good Friday shows, worst Easter memory or alternatively a good one is the question. While this is pitched with humourous intent, to me it unintentionally lurched into a slightly negative and almost negative, griping space, which was a bit weird, but a temporary diversion from the usual frivolity. Vika and Linda Bull.At this point I was beginning to wonder where Vika and Linda were, as RockWiz royalty, surely the show couldn’t be complete without them, and sure enough they appeared to perform backing vocals on the next song.

Next was a cosy 20 minutes interval, where the audience could get a drink or snack from the bar if so inclined, before once again re-assembling to the sounds of Vika Bull doing a sublime rendition of Woman by Neneh Cherry with her sister Linda on backing vocals and then it was back into the antics and intrigue of the quiz, punctuated by musical performances such as a belting version of Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll by Sarah McLeod, replete with jumping up on one of the panelists’ desks and up with the RockWiz Orkestra on the raised platform at the back of the stage. It is difficult to resist shouting out answers to the questions when you know them at the live show and Julia Zemiro had to very humourously shoot down someone who was doing such early on in the night.

Vika and Linda returned to the stage to do a stunning rendition of a mid-20th Century soul song, this time with Linda on lead vocals and Vika on backing. Britsh comedian Paul Foot was introduced to do a quite prolonged stint from his Comedy Festival show and swap with Sarah McLeod as a panelist for a while. While not my cup of tea, Brian Nankervis is presumably a fan and friend of Foot, who is a very good performer regardless, and I surmise that is why he’s given such a prominent spot in the show. Nankervis being a fan and past performer of absurdist humour himself in the 80’s with his legendary character, Raymond J. Bartholomeuz.

Even though I was bored and momentarily annoyed awkwardly enough, Foot seems like a nice guy and definitely has a likeable presence on the stage and enough of the audience seemed to like him to make it all worthwhile. The quiz was brought to its climax, Casey Donovan and Ian Moss played the penultimate number with a searing version of the mighty Chisel’s masterful Saturday Night, all the performers got together for the rousing final number and another excellent RockWiz Live show was brought to its conclusion, coming in at just under three hours for an always guaranteed terrific night’s entertainment.