KEY POINTS:
Every year, more and more acts turn up to the comedy festival bearing musical instruments. But the Kransky sisters would out excess-baggage them all.
The matching trio of spinsters - whose look suggests gothic 80s bank teller or the beginnings of a Nick Cave B-side - come bearing tambourines, toilet brush, tuba, saw, kitchen items of percussive merit, an electric keyboard that Edison himself may have designed and an acoustic guitar.
They use those to play a set of insane cover versions - AC/DC's Highway to Hell with a tuba solo for instance. Or Michael Jackson's Thriller given a mad Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? remix. Or the Eurhythmics' Sweet Dreams which proves not only can the Kranskys sing, they have a tambourine technique so lethal it could take on an entire Salvation Army.
By itself, the Kranskys' musical prowess would be enough for a evening's rib-risking entertainment. It sure was - at the end they managed to divorce Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild from its Easy Rider associations and turn it into the retirement home singalong it should be.
But there's far more to their Heard it On the Wireless show. As told by the forthright and regal Mourne, we get a family history while painting a strange but vivid picture of their hometown of Esk in rural Queensland.
Sitting either side of her are the quieter Eve (mad staring eyes, deft hand at the musical saw) and the near-mute Dawn (mad staring eyes in glasses, highly skilled on tuba).
And as the trio go from their shudderingly deadpan tales to manic bursts of musical energy, the effect is disarming. Even more so for the two gentlemen caught up in the audience participation parts of the show ("guest triangle") on this night.
No, the Kranskys are anything but just another comedy act doing music. They are frighteningly good at the song stuff and just plain frightening when it comes to comedy. Highly recommended.
