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 Photo: Justin Ma
Despite being a sold-out performance tonight, the crowd slowly filtering into The Globe seems to be awash with yawns and sunken eyes and dive for seat space within moments. In this context, it’s not surprising that Andy Bull’s enthusiasm and cheesy grin was met with slight disinterest. Basically a jazz-infused pop trio, the group tonight also includes a saxophone, trumpet and trombone. While this often brings more energetic and positive results, they largely play superfluous fluff. Blame Mark ‘Just Add Horns’ Ronson. While the set was nothing special, the meatheads yelling out ‘you suck’ throughout took it slightly too far. But Bull handles them particularly well, a galvanizing effect which allows the band to finish up on a high note. Although the personal highlight was witnessing a bloke vomit on an unsuspecting bystander halfway through … worth the ticket price alone.
The increasing crowd are forced to stand up just as Sydney’s young The Holidays appear onstage. Singer Simon Jones struggles through the first few songs, which suggests they’re being subjected to the same woeful audio mix that the audience is. In general it sounds pretty tragic: the drums drown out most things while the lead guitar sounds like the amp is upstairs. At times they appear energetic and stimulated, at others they look slightly ashamed and knowing they could do better. While I’m not sure how much of the show can be attributed directly to the sound, glimmers of their full force jaunty pop in Telephone and Apparently Nothing suggest an unlucky night. And does anyone else think Jones sounds like The Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner? And is that a good thing?
There are few musicians in Australia today who can pull off wearing glasses inside (maybe just Tex?), and it would appear that Little Red’s Dom Byrne is still not in this auspicious circle. No matter though, just close your eyes and absorb the gorgeous four part harmonies of these young and snappy-dressed Melbournians. Then open your eyes and watch drummer Taka Honda rock out with his well-documented ‘Ringo head bounce’. Tom Hartney clearly sees himself as the resident sex symbol, strutting and grunting his stuff through Little Annie. The cramped quarters, swapping lead vocals and tight doo-wop harmonies; these kids owe far more to the Mersey River than they do the Yarra. Although the riffs, chords and song motifs (pretty women, cars, red dresses and so on) sometimes shift from genre adoration to copyright infringement, their spirit is genuine and contagious. Some harmonies on newer material created some cringeworthy moments, but all is soon forgotten after another quick glance in Honda’s direction. The meshing voices – particularly on radio faves Coca Cola, Jackie Cooper and So Long – send girls’ hearts aflutter, as waves of scream rise fairly regularly. That these five scrawny teens are diverting the attention of women in the arms of the aforementioned meatheads is the sweetest victory or all…right next to when two such cavemen get evicted. There’s a lesson to be learnt in this: put down the protein shake and pick up a guitar. Granted, they’re both penis substitutes, but a milkshake never wrote I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
MITCH ALEXANDER
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