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 Photo: Justin Ma
It’s another Saturday night in Fortitude Valley and another sold-out show at The Zoo with a sizeable throng of punters buzzing around the venue’s 44-gallon drums and pool tables as local popsters Ball Park Music populate the stage. The six-piece’s songs, like latest single Sea Strangers (I Don’t Really Know You), are multi-layered pop tunes that hinge upon the collective’s exuberant stage presence. Above all the band’s songs are fun – it’s an undercurrent that’s become the bread and butter of Brisbane’s indie pop groups and is working well for Ball Park Music.
As late arrivals scramble up the stairs, those who had been mingling calmly at the back of the venue surge forward and jostle excitedly for a better position. The jostling rapidly makes way for frenzied dancing and pogoing as the sunny harmonies and chirpy horn parts of The John Steel Singers’ psych-pop songs penetrate every corner of the venue’s space. Strawberry Wine, Evolution and crowd favourite Rainbow Kraut are brilliant songs and tonight are delivered with a casual ease that’s heard in the tightness of the musicians’ parts.
That tonight’s show is a sell-out performance crystallises the fact that in the last 12 months, Sydney’s Philadelphia Grand Jury have been an omnipotent force in Australian music. The trio of Berkfinger, MC Bad Genius and new drummer Calvin have literally been everywhere, clocking up the mileage during several national tours where they’ve packed-out shows with a feverish following. Tonight is one of the Philly Jays’ final shows of their Australian tour before they head to the UK and US to flog the wares of debut album Hope Is For Hopers and, erm, MC Bad Genius’s bushranger chic. The band’s live performance is heavy on gimmickry, with pre-recorded voiceovers providing most of the band’s stage banter while the trio remain frozen in action poses. Then there’s the rawk, the entirely unremarkable rawk. Going To The Casino (Tomorrow Night), The Good News, I’m Going To Kill You and I Don’t Want To Party Party are rollicking, near-nonsensical pop rock party anthems. They’re big, brash and hugely popular, just as fellow Sydneysiders and Triple J-championed act Bluejuice’s Vitriol and Broken Leg were before them. With their sojourn to the US and UK just around the corner, the Philly Jays will have to fix up and look sharp if they are to garner the same devoted live following among less impressionable US and UK audiences. Cartoon gimmickry and bushy beards may be a hit here in Australia, but it will take more than a rocked-up cover of Jay-Z’s 99 Problems to impress chin-stroking Northern Hemisphere tastemakers – all the best, PGJ.
JACK LANGRIDGE
CHECK OUT MORE PHOTOS FROM THE PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY GIG HERE
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