TAMBALANE MARKED AN OBSCURE PRE-AUSTRALIAN IDOL BEGINNING FOR WES CARR

WES CARR is far and away the most talented contestant to win AUSTRALIAN IDOL, in my opinion. Apart from the very first series winner GUY SEBASTIAN and runner-up SHANNON NOLL, most contestants on the show who have won or come close to winning on the TV show have never lived up to the huge expectations expected of them, going it alone and having no idea how to write their own material has caught up with just about all of them. Besides WES CARR, one of the more inspiring post-Australian Idol recordings was that of DAMIEN LEITH some years ago, the irish-australian recorded a tribute album to ROY ORBISON, all of which being the Big O's songs. Never been a big fan of all covers albums but LEITH made a fine job of replicating the rock legend. Long before CARR made it into AUSTRALIAN IDOL, he actually was the singer/guitarist in a band featuring SILVERCHAIR drummer BEN GILLIES, considered to be one of the best australian drummers ever. The band was called TAMBALANE and GILLIES was the founder. TAMBALANE was only ever meant to be a side project for GILLIES while SILVERCHAIR took a breather. The band only recorded one self titled album in 2005, in the words of Gillies himself he couldn't wait to dissolve the band because of a crippling power struggle within the band which reached the point of no return soon after the album's release. Not sure who was the most guilty of being the power tripper in the band but one single off the album, FREE, still stacks up today. WES CARR wasn't a raw prawn amateur on Australian Idol afterall.