Welcome to ravemagazine.com.au the on-line home of Brisbane's leading street magazine - now with daily site updates to keep you in touch with all the latest music news, tour and gig information.
Laneway arrives not as a sweaty sizzle fest but as the kind of rainy day that festival dreams are made of. Sporting humid hairdos and cheap raincoats, mellow festival-goers stroll in for a day of sulphur lights and musical hopscotch across the four stages at the RNA Showgrounds’ Alexandria Street.
Triple J darlings Cub Scouts are the right dose of sunny goodness to strip away the haze of the day, opening The Zoo/Big Sound Stage. Frontman Tim Nelson’s gentle vocals layer precisely against soft male harmonies as early-goers gather round to dance. Songs about girls who are into cadavers sound gorgeous and delicate against a fistful of wispy drums.
Though he’s on first at the Car Park Stage, Geoffrey O’Connor’s show is one of the day’s best. With Wayfarers on and looking like a lanky if oddly sexy geography teacher, O’Connor is flanked by a pair of lovely keyboard players, and delivers a suave set of synth pop. The vibe is a little bit Addicted To Love, so it’s really no surprise when a cover of this song comes out.
Having long disposed of the Danimals moniker, affable Sydneysider Jonti Twirligig-s away in front of a small but appreciative audience gathered at Eat Your Own Young/Young Turks Stage, pressing buttons and moving faders like a pro. It’s all great fun, however the most hands-down amusing moment arrives when he grabs a uke and strums out a joyously daft ditty about Saturday night, grinning goofily all along (alas, there is no Skrillex drop/Rickroll this time).
Tonight’s openers Acid Snake are playing their last show. The band eulogise their short career with feral feedback and unfettered aggression. Then there set is over and there are plenty of bro-hugs up onstage. How sentimental.
Sydney’s Civil War are up next. Their Boston-styled tough guy hardcore is catnip to those looking to slam dance, the floor filling quickly as the band muscle their way through a set of brawny tunes, and while Shackles have the evening’s most misleading moniker, when the thrash/punk five-piece get into their set they feel completely unrestrained.
When headliners I Exist are setting up their gear, I am reminded of the heavy metal guitar orchestra playing during the demolition derby scene of Idiocracy. The band fill out the tiny stage with four (!) guitarists, who expertly find the groove hiding in their sludge and doom riffs while attempting some sweet synchronised headbanging. With a rhythm section on point and a vocalist working his way through the crowd, the rest of I Exist certainly do their bit, yet the band is still very much all about the guitar parts. The quartet of six-stringers offer up 40 odd minutes of earth-shatteringly heavy riffs, and the crowd loves each one.
With the Henry Matisse exhibition drawing a well-dressed crowd to GoMA, tonight’s Up Late showcase brings us the inimitable Sam Amidon – who’s finishing his first-ever Australian tour in Brisbane.
Carrying a quiet, dignified presence, the charismatic US singer-songwriter steps up to the mic, straps on his guitar and immediately silences the buzzing, wine-sipping room with the first vocalised line. His curly hair (doubtless given extra frizz by the city’s humid air) resembling a halo in the light, a number of things about the Vermont native are as ‘modern folk’ as they can get, from his waistcoat down to the suede shoes. Still, Amidon’s music manages to retain a certain singularity: it’s not old-time like Frank Fairfield’s pre-78 record jigs and laments, but neither is it an “innovative” sobfest a la Bon Iver.
Gifted with a wonderfully sonorous voice and rare storytelling ability, the curly-haired troubadour takes us places as he switches between an acoustic and a banjo. A natural fingerpicker with a slight penchant for unconventional, Robbie Basho-redolent patterns, his dreamy croon – reminiscent of Nick Drake during softer moments – is much more powerful and booming live, cracking up beautifully during high notes. Between songs, he displays a rather quirky sense of humour, crediting his brief, improvised-on-the-spot guitar solos to the French artist.
Upon delivering the night’s first pleasant surprise in the shape of Tears For Fears’ mighty Head Over Heels (which he strips right down to its yearning core), the American invites Beth Orton – who he opened for earlier this month at The Old Museum – on stage for a clearly unrehearsed, yet somehow impeccable-sounding duet. A courteous host, Amidon is quick to help out when the terminally shy UK folkie forgets the lyrics to Big Star’s Thirteen – indisputably one of the loveliest acoustic ballads ever recorded.
Lastly, he alleviates any potential disappointment caused by the performance’s brevity by finishing with a haunting double of Little Johnny Brown and Wedding Dress. Sam, what a gem.
The Hi-Fi seems like the perfect refuge from the dreary weather as a line-up of entertaining prog rock and ’70s-inspired haze kicks off many a punters Friday night festivities.
Psychedelic rockers Stryder try to melt as many of the faces in front of them as possible with wah-wah heavy retro riffs and big bravado organs as they drive their way through a set of spacey jams with power. Sounding like a fresh take on the often attempted Led Zeppelin/Jimi Hendrix appropriation – see Wolfmother et al – the band impress the gathering crowd.
Local prog rock aficionados Levic keep the evening rolling delivering truly interesting guitar tones and passages layered underneath some nicely reverbed vocals. Airtight drumming swings from one time signature to the next with ease as even a seemingly strange cover choice in Adrian Lux’s Teenage Crime works well swapping synth lines for wailing guitar.
The Secret Silence pick up where the previous set left off with their own heavier and more driving take on the genre. Their set lacks subtlety and is much better for it as they combine all the elements of the prog rock package with a much heavier adhesive underneath the wailing vocals.
Epidemic...Over look clearly comfortable on the stage as they run through a set with energy and conviction, churning out big riffs and powerful vocals tied up by a driving rhythm section. Lead singer Nathan Bedford maintains great presence, microphone twirling and dancing his way throughout as the band make their way through an impressive set of hard-rocking tunes.
A decent crowd leaves The Hi-Fi with a thorough night’s entertainment; all bands involved delivering technically tight and enjoyable sets which surely won them at least a few more fans.
A drizzly Friday night at the PCYC might make tonight’s internationals feel more at home but it’s very clear, even from doors, that tonight belongs to local stalwarts Third Strike, who are hanging up the mosh pants after more than six years of crushing grass roots hardcore and bar-setting pit chaos.
On the front lines tonight are local up-and-comers Thick Skin, crashing into their peculiar blend of manic hardcore glee and measured but clean-ish blues-tinged lead colour. It’s a tough call, warming the floor for this line-up, and while the scratchy riffs and overbearing guitar melody might be a bit much for some, at least the band are trying to push things forward a little; for this we are keen.
The lights are quickly lost for the far more dissonant straightedge flagbearers xStrength Through Purityx, and with immediate effect. Notably less concerned with spectacle, the lads seem happy to let their sound fill the space as they steam headstrong through a well-delivered and crispy set of breakdown-heavy action – a job well done without really nudging the bar of their obvious ability.
Iron Mind are quick to peel things back, if only just long enough to let the sheer toughness of their heavier, more weighted brand of ’90s-esque hardcore throb properly register. Not even the standard bit of dickhead violence can curb the effect of these rolling tunes, the pit really starting to open up now as the stock-o song structures begin to tickle the spot.
Almost the life of a scene in the making, the lads from Third Strike have everyone by the throat even before the guitar sounds are ready to go. And though it mightn’t be the most impressive space the band have ever managed, somehow a local, no-frills community hall floorshow couldn’t be a more appropriate send-off. Save for some characteristically to-the-point shout-outs and a handful of smart phones from mates desperately trying to capture a virtual souvenir of what has been a very special half-decade, there are few bells and whistles here; a Buried Alive cover and the title track from the Tempest record the penultimate opportunity for most to throw down to a band that will always have a special part in local heavy music’s historical narrative.
The buzz surrounding Long Island-reared New York hardcore outfit Back Track means that the guys, following the official sayonara of one of Queensland’s most revered heavy bands, will need to play their guts out tonight. Luckily they seem up to the challenge; the tried and true, proper gritty, downright filthy guitar sound so characteristic of their hardcore roots is paired very nicely with an utterly giv’er vocal screech and an infectious percussive energy. They mightn’t match the previous band in ferocious intensity but there’s plenty of enthusiasm from an Australian music community that seems to have impressed these much-hyped Americans. Similarly unconcerned with the ritual of headlining, the boys wind things up as unceremoniously as they started and, as though it could have ended any other way, everyone goes home wholeheartedly satisfied.
Any musical artist would struggle to raise expectations higher than Washington has with her Insomnia show. Facts first: the show is one of the top billed of the Sydney Festival, it has sold out the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, it’s also one of only four performances – first in Sydney, then Paris, London, New York. Furthermore, the Insomnia album came in the wake of, or in response to, a reportedly emotionally overwhelming year for Megan Washington, in which her debut album I Believe You Liar sold platinum and garnered a swag of awards; Insomnia’s songs are the kind that pin you to the wall with honesty, they bristle with the kind of skinned-shins rawness, and in part the four-performances-only aspect of the Insomnia work is allegedly owed to the musician’s reluctance to revisit the emotion of some songs. Then there the show’s description as a “conceptual work [which] incorporates art, poetry, photography and designs” presented in four movements: Opiate, Amphetamine, Barbiturate and Nicotine. We take out seats before a stage populated with sculpture, screens, a plethora of instruments, and a Victorian lounge seat.
Washington slinks out on stage during the string-section introduction, she sits shadowed on the lounge seat then she launches into a spine-chilling rendition of Sentimental Education. Its like opening floodgates, pouring forth a kind of stage presence usually reserved for the likes of PJ Harvey or Tori Amos, unleashing a soaring cannonball voice to which hometown shows had merely hinted. String-section interludes and video performance art divide the show’s movements, which are each sewn with the appropriate effect of their drug designation: after the transfixing hit of Opiate we get a the wide smile of Amphetamine (Letterbox, Public Pool) but the smile is short-lived; in the Barbiturate movement High Treason seems to rip something primal out of our performer, the song’s crescendo pushing her to a kind of breaking point. She retreats to the lounge seat for non-album song Mirror In The Mirror, featuring lyrics of painful hospital scenes and bargaining with the devil. An inhalation of Nicotine jolts the audience’s attention with upbeat Plastic Bag and lead single Holy Moses, but here’s where the show loses something: the radio-friendly tracks are certainly well-received, but the departure of tone fractures the show’s cohesion as a singular work. To elaborate, there’s a question lurking throughout Insomnia about the limits of form in pop music: Washington may want to present Insomnia as a singular work akin to performance art or symphony, but how achievable is this given its parts are still three-to-four-minute pop songs? In this way Insomnia remains the performance of an album with added flourish. Or is this the wrong question – is Megan Washington instead setting personal limits on her public interaction? Perhaps it’s not about raising expectations, perhaps Insomnia was not to be something that transcends the form of pop music performance, but instead limiting: setting boundaries beyond which repeated performance is far too personal. Performing an exhausting album can only exhaust the performer so many times. Thus for those of us lucky enough to witness this once-off, we received something very special.
That’s right! It’s time for the annual dose of good old fashioned beer-chugging, ‘C-bomb’-dropping fast times as the local Mohawk-sporting milieu seems to seep up through the cracks in the floor for their bout with iconic So-Cal punks Guttermouth. And what a collection of characters it is, more than a few enthusiasts being scooped off the floor even before the first half of tonight’s local supports – Crooked Face and Friends With The Enemy – kick things off. The latter’s expertly delivered, particularly melodious take on the classic Fat Wreck Chords sound standard enough to keep us all happy.
Up next, The Scam eventually work their way into a rather more dissident blend of trashy guitar noise and adolescent soap-box sprays that only serve to draw out a fairly annoying set. Luckily, though, The Big Rigs – for all their unbounded hideousness – seem up to the task of pulling this one back. The boys’ more rock-inspired set walks the fairly precarious line between three-string chords and classic hard rock rhythms well, even including a nod to Steppenwolf without too much fuss.
But it’s Guttermouth who finally drag most of this motley crew in off the pavement, emerging Hawaiian-shirted, bunny-eared and unenviable levels of entropy in-tow. Indeed, it’s four or five songs into the set before we can even make out the tequila-swigging frontman, Mark Adkins. Having never taken a backward step in the near-on three-decade history of the band, it is nothing short of amazing that his biology continues to hold up to this, even managing to occasionally hold the microphone to his mouth despite the best efforts of the crowd.
Typically, there’re too many classics in this set to mention, save for the final run of Bruce Lee, 123 Slam! and Perfect World that were just practised enough to be delivered coherently. Sonically unintelligible, discursively repugnant and downright shithouse in every sense of the word, this might just be the ‘punk-est’ thing I’ve ever laid eyes on – and it’s absolutely brilliant.
Perhaps it’s the torrential rain dumping on the northern suburbs, but in the Eatons Hill Hotel tonight fringes seem to be especially slicked across foreheads, just as eye make-up seems particularly pronounced. This rain can’t deter young and old alike, as the incredibly diverse audience filters into the cavernous venue to catch a performance of the emo-rock survivors My Chemical Romance. Melbourne’s Closure In Moscow serve as the baton-twirlers in tonight’s black parade. The post-hardcore band showing off their prog/psych rock chops might go over the heads of some of tonight’s younger fans, but in their short set they manage to play music with a depth that resonates with a good portion of the crowd.
In between songs tonight, My Chemical Romance vocalist Gerard Way makes it clear that it’s the band’s fans versus the world. Issuing such an ultimatum seems to alienate no one, rather the crowd responds to any divisive proposition with gleeful shrieks of agreement. They’re on My Chemical Romance’s side, and from the shiny cabaret rock of efforts like Mama and Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) to the pulsing strains of disco permeating numbers like Planetary (Go!), the band are met with uniform appreciation from the crowd. The band can seemingly do no wrong onstage, each new song, irrespective of what album it’s from, is greeted with furious applause and manic screaming.
My Chemical Romance’s set crescendos with Welcome To The Black Parade. Something like corporate punk’s version of Bohemian Rhapsody, the voice of the crowd overwhelms the band as they run through their signature anthem. Their set continues past the tune, there’s an encore that doesn’t disappoint, yet nothing in the rest of band’s arsenal can quite reach the frenzied excitement of a crowd being welcomed into that Black Parade.
Tigermoth plays smoky, underwater beats – can you have smoke underwater? Doesn’t matter, that’s Tigermoth’s sound. It’s a fine accompaniment for drinking beer and watching people play pool.
Ghillie suits are those things snipers wear that make them look like green Wookiees, and also what the two MCs of Disaster! wear to disguise themselves. Everyone knows that one of them is Quan Yeomans, but his female counterpart is a mystery. Whoever she is, she’s incredible. Not just because she’s jumping around like a hyperactive lion even while wearing a sweaty dehydration suit, but because she upstages Quan on a couple of his own tracks. Their set’s a mix of stuff from his under-rated solo album and new songs – a playground chant called F.A.I.L. is a self-deprecating highlight – with a cover of All Fake Everything by some band called Regurgitator thrown in. Don’t know them, but it sounds great.
Before the headliners, Lakutis emerges with DJ Dapwell to deliver some goofy rhymes. The main reason they’ve brought him along is to lower expectations: “This is what a dumb person being dumb sounds like, so you remember how much better it is when smart people sound dumb, which is what we do.” We take pity and clap anyway, but he can tell it’s half-hearted and leaves in a huff after a few tracks.
And finally, Das Racist. Maybe that talk of their Big Day Out show being a life-changing transcendent orgasm of an experience got my hopes up too high, because the fact they can repeat their stuff on a stage over music that’s too loud and occasionally full of air horns is a bit of a letdown. They’re charismatic, especially Heems with his party animal brown John Belushi thing, and when they do Michael Jackson it’s amazing. Maybe I’m just sad because they’re too cool to do Combination Taco Bell And Pizza Hut any more.
When Last Dinosaurs start up the crowd is already huge, but even while Sean Caskey is claiming that he can’t believe how many people are here, the band seems supremely unfazed. They’re old hands at this after all. They play mostly songs off their soon-to-be-released album In A Million Years, consisting of familiar angular rhythm guitar and striking spiralled lead, beefed up with layers of synth and frenetic bass. Very ’80s dance-pop cut Weekend sounds like it’ll be an early album highlight. The monster singles Honolulu and Zoom close the set, rivalling even tonight’s headliners for catchiness.
It’s almost an hour before Foster The People arrive, which is more than enough time to almost suffocate on fake-tan fumes. But all is forgiven when they get on stage. Brimming with Californian confidence, the six-piece rip through debut album Torches and every song is so massive and anthemic I don’t realise until more than half-way through that they haven’t yet played any of the singles. Mark Foster takes huge choruses and boosts them to the next level just with his voice to great effect in songs like Warrant and Houdini. For the latter’s “ooooh ooooooh” chorus, Foster conducts the crowd to sing along like a choir of disco pigeons. And then comes Call It What You Want, the song’s bitter, scene-dissecting lyrics having no effect on this crowd’s ability to go absolutely nuts.
Foster brings out a guitar for a dark, rocky version of Helena Beat before the band goes offstage, getting resoundingly cheered back on to play that single that just won’t die. First though, we get a straight rock cover of Weezer’s Say It Ain’t So (thank god, cause if there’s one song that doesn’t need dancifying it’s that one) and a forgettable piano ballad, building up tension before a heavy, dubsteppy version of Pumped Up Kicks. Foster hardly needs to do anything at all to have the crowd frantic with euphoria, jumping into their open arms to be held aloft, a dance-pop king.
