The Northcote Social Club
November 9, 2007
Openers Oh Mercy are an interesting bunch. One of the more handsome bands to be playing around, they can pen a decent tune and have a way with lyrics, but more importantly, unlike tonight's headliners, they can engage an audience - you can tell more is happening on that stage than your eye percieves. Given that Australia loves a wordy rock band and these guys are one of the best, they should be headlining more shows soon. EP track Such A Pretty Dollhouse gets a great reworking tonight and sounds like a band who wouldn't have to enter a competition to get a BDO slot as they did last year. Closing track Lost In Translation hints at their ambition when writing songs, and though it doesn't gel as you can tell it should, it's still a bold step. Despite barely being able to see their arms for the influences on their sleeves, these guys are well on their way.
As is tonight's meat in the band sandwich, Whitley. Though he uses obvious instruments (guitar, bass, delay pedal), his songs seem to come from somewhere else entirely, well, Mornington Peninsula actually, but you can see he is beating his own path through the forest of singer-songwriters about at the moment, using simple rhythmic strumming and few notes for the most part, allowing him to open up to unexpected vistas with a chord. Beginning with the title track from his CD The Submarine, by all rights the crowd of chattering non-regulars should be brought to a reverential silence. As it is, barely 10% of the sold out crowd who seemed to pay $20 to shout at each other over the music and drink, pay attention. Not that this flummoxes Whitley or his sidekick Chris Seagull (fresh from a few Albert's Basement benefits and tonight given a chance to shine with his own fantastic I'm Gonna Bloody Call The Cops) who pull out one marvellous song after the other (particularly Lost In Time), between which they crack jokes and generally seem like guys you would be stoked if your sister married. With his cover of Bjork's Hyperballad he again shows his penchant for an unusual approach to the tried and tired. No sub-Nick Drake radio-friendly plucking here, he reinterprets with a (trademark, it seems) insistant strum and swooping voice that never sounds forced or anything but his own. Closing with a majestic version of All Is Whole he seals the deal that the hype rising about him is entirely justified.
The same of which cannot be said for headliners The (incredibly misleadingly titled) Panics. Though they so capably supported The Pixies back in March, tonight they are tired and underwhelming, every song another exercise in tedious glam-rock-paced country swagger. Quite how they've sold out the No So two nights in a row is a mystery given that their musical dullness extends to a lack of charisma and even fashion. With a list of obvious influences that runs as long as this gig seems to go, there is barely a shift in dynamics (only the title track from new album Cruel Guards brings a change) perhaps due to the songs being written on a keyboard. Being bound to a stool is always a tricky way to lead a band, but the punters don't seem to mind, many of them chattering through the set and watching the band like a rerun of Forrest Gump. Tracks Ruins and Feeling Is Gone have great lyrics and would probably be fine listened to driving along a highway near Bulli, but tonight it was a giant yawn. Literally; a girl fell asleep, and that was long-before the tired chords of In Your Head fade away and the crowd ambled home.
