Alhambra - Fri Mar 1

I’m pretty sure it’s getting to be an issue of age (at 22, I feel ancient in this crowd of fashionistas), but it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between the plethora of angular dancerock bands that disband just as quickly as they form, only to return as two bands like a starfish cut in half. The first such echinoderm tonight is Melbourne’s Mission Control, whose awkwardly shy dark pop would be much better received if eye contact was attempted. Halfway through the set you get the sense that the other half will not offer much more in terms of variety. And then we have The Touch, whose predictable dance rock rhythms and four note guitar lines are not improved by the grating super-pronounced vocals of Josh Moore, trying painfully hard to pull off a New York wail as he bounds across the stage. Elke are the saving grace so far, bumming out the buzzing crowd with some delightfully cheesy new romantic synth lines that inspire more than a few breakouts of robot dancing. Oh yeah, don’t think I didn’t see that. The hype surrounding Art Vs. Science is re-evaluated within minutes, as they fail to engage the crowd in a way that the previous three acts did. You can have the catchiest songs in the world to dance to, but a crowd can tell when you don’t want to be there.

In the time it took to write this review 14.3 new dance rock bands have been created, all writing the exact same song; worse than swine flu.

MITCH ALEXANDER

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