Interviews/Reviews

Monday, May 13, 2013

RUNNING WILD: An interview with Super Wild Horses

In which ANDY HAZEL looks for clues as Amy Franz and Hayley McKee aka Melbourne garage rock duo SUPER WILD HORSES talk the Melbourne Sound, and explain why they recorded their new album Crosswords in winter, in a butter factory.

When Super Wild Horses first appeared in 2009, pushed into playing their first gig by an insistent friend, Amy Franz and Hayley McKee were high-school friends had no interest in forming a band. Now both small business operators (McKee runs Sticky Fingers bakery and Franz is a jewellery wholesaler), the duo still don’t feel like a ‘real’ band.
‘It was only when I moved to Melbourne, which was six years ago, that I said ‘let’s have a little jam’,’ says McKee. ‘Amy had equipment in her house and we pulled it together and thought we’d give it a go. I bought a drum kit before I moved because I really wanted to play drums, but I sold them for my ticket to Melbourne so I literally had them for about a week,’ she laughs.

‘We’ve both grown up around music and were latecomers to making music,’ says Franz. ‘I would say that we both have a sense of music understanding, but in terms of practice it’s a more recent thing.’

While a lot of friends decide that forming a band would be a cool idea, very few are still going two albums down the track, with one US tour in the bag, another on the horizon and still without an idea of what makes them special. ‘Maybe not aspiring to anything other than making music?’ McKee suggests carefully. ‘We want to do our best for ourselves and to learn new things, but there’s no way we ever went: ‘let’s form a band’.

‘Or make records,’ adds Franz reflexively.

‘Yeah, we were just fucking around and it’s been heaps of fun,’ says McKee. Franz expands on this sense of fun and freedom that Super Wild Horses channel. ‘We’ve always been open to things as they come and get excited about them, it’s not like things went for or against a plan we had, we’ve travelled a very meandering path. We have a similar idea about what we want and what the band is to us,’ she explains as McKee agrees. ‘There haven’t been the arguments that exist in some other bands where people have got different ideas about what they want; if someone wants to be famous and someone else wants to keep it low key say. We have a pretty similar outlook.’

This similarity of view extends as far as not arguing, at all. Perhaps it’s the maturity and lack of ego inherent in an instrument-swapping female duo, but even the legend of the band forming after ‘a bratty argument in a car’ as one printed story told, is a misnomer. ‘It wasn’t an argument,’ says Franz. ‘We just used to sing in cars, we used to wind the windows up and sing weird songs to make each other laugh.’

‘Just to make each other crack up,’ continues McKee ‘that was the primary objective. I don’t think we’ve ever argued,’ she looks to Franz.

‘No arguments, just silences,’ she laughs. ‘We just wait until the other one is exhausted. Normally, if one of us has a really strong opinion on something, the other will say ‘OK, cool. If you feel really strongly about that, let’s roll with it,’ and the rest of the time we’re both either wishy-washy about something or both really into it, so decision-making is generally pretty easy.’

The decision to record their second album, Crosswords in a butter factory outside of Castlemaine is one both thought was a great idea. Previously used by Twerps and Chet Faker, the cavernous interior lends the album a unifying, natural reverb that Franz sees as a big bonus to the band’s guitar / drums / vocals approach. ‘It’s always going to be a sparse sound, but we wanted it to have warmth with that reverb. Even though people often think of reverb as a distancing effect, I always thought of it as the opposite, there’s something close about that beautiful echo-y sound.’

McKee agrees. ‘We were really conscious of trying to fill the gaps that our first record had, which was just two instruments, two vocals and nothing much in between. This is why we wanted bass on a track or organ to push that sound and make it squishier.’

‘We really like getting out of town to do recording,’ she continues. ‘We like getting away and having the space to just commit, really commit, to this period of time for recording.’

‘I think we’re more comfortable when…actually, we’ve never recorded in a studio,’ realises Franz. ‘We like the idea of being able to set up your gear, go for as long as you want to - stay there preferably - and not have all the things that go with being in a space that belongs to someone else.

‘It would just be weird doing it and then going home in your car,’ says McKee

‘And going home and cleaning your house,’ continues Franz

‘Yeah!’ laughs McKee.

‘And that warehouse shell was great,’ says Franz keenly. ‘We shifted in, we took some pictures with us and stuck them all over the walls. It really felt like our joint for those three days. When I listen to the songs I can recollect the moments we were recording them, because it was very cold. We were doing the vocals at nighttime huddled around this little pot-bellied stove, and it was freezing. We had all of our clothes on plus blankets, three pairs of socks and standing next to this potbelly that was hissing and cracking while we were recording. I think you can still hear it a couple of times on the album. When I listen to the songs I can see Hayley looking like some weird wizard from Lord of the Rings,’ she cracks up.

Crosswords shows an evolution from embracing the limitations that made their debut album Fifteen so popular and made them part of the ‘Melbourne Sound’, a ‘scene’ the band have no problem with.

‘I think inherently there’ll always be a bracket there with us,’ ponders McKee. ‘UV Race, Eddy Current, Mikey Young’ that kind of thing will always be floating round. Eddy Current was a bit before us but we all bubbled away together for a while and now I think it gets referred to as that sound. But I think the Melbourne Sound shifted, it’s more Dick Diver, Twerps, Stevens sort of sound now, whereas before it was more garage DIY. It’s still DIY depending on what you do but it’s always been a bunch of friends just getting together and doing it.’

Franz agrees, ‘I think it’s inevitable that people are going to use reference points when they’re writing about a band that no one’s heard of. You see it in almost every review you ever read: ‘they sound kind of like this band or that band’, and I’m happy to be lumped in with this Melbourne scene in general, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily that specific.’

‘I do think we allowed ourselves time to push songs as much as we could rather than the first record where we could write a song and we were like ‘oh my God, it’s a song, we’ve nearly hit three minutes, this is awesome, let’s have a beer.’ Whereas for this record I was like: What about we do this? What about we push it that way? I know when I listen to the record now, I feel confident that the form we chose for it was the right one for that song. We tried out different things and I feel we found the right one.’

‘Well, I think we could always learn more,’ says McKee.

Franz laughs, ‘that’s going to be the headline. We could always learn more!’

SUPER WILD HORSES SIDEBAR – Crosswords?

Asking the band to explain the title makes both women act as though they’ve never thought of it before:

‘We both like crosswords, you particularly like crosswords,’ says McKee to Franz.

‘I do yeah,’ she replies.

‘You have for ages, especially those scratchy ones.’

Franz enthusiastically interrupts ‘I DO! I love those scratchy ones, you’re so right I really love them! I also buy these books of crosswords when I go on international flights.’

McKee continues ‘I hate cryptic crosswords.’

‘Oh, I don’t understand them at all,’ says Franz her tone changing abruptly.

McKee switches back to explaining the title ‘What we actually meant was that game Wordfinder, because we had so many ideas for titles. We thought wouldn’t it be funny if we put out a record with all the titles we were thinking of, and have it come with a pencil and people could circle the name they like.’

Franz agrees, ‘we were also going to put in the working titles for songs that weren’t the real titles anymore but it was just a way to put in all these words and people could make of it what they would. But Wordfinder is a weird name for an album. Crosswords has that nice double meaning for us for filling out a crossword and you’re trying to find your way…

Hayley interrupts ‘and the clues you need…and it’s black and white…we could just keep going.

Franz continues ‘and then if you split the word in half it’s like cross, words; there are a lot of songs about relationships and about navigating your way through them, so it had this good double meaning.’

Friday, May 3, 2013

Live Review: AINSLIE WILLS, SPENDER, OSCAR LUSH

Northcote Social Club

Sydneysider Oscar Lush opens the evening with a small guitar, large beard, tight jeans and an expression that instantly reminds you the comedy festival is over. Musically, however Lush is a far from simplistic categorization. Openers Started A War and Vanishing Point immediately set him apart as a singer/songwriter, with his resonant and expressive voice, evocative lyrics and deft guitar playing. Channeling Phil Ochs and Jackson C Frank, but probably a bigger fan of The National, Lush is a revelation who seems excitingly out of place in 2013. Songs jerk along with slashing strums and a voice made for filling big, old rooms and fire-lit shacks. I Dreamed of My Brother Dying, a song he apparently finished today, is breathtaking in its lyrical acuity, marking him as a major discovery.

Spender is a tight punchy three piece specialising in a curiously catchy take on math-rock and charisma to spare. Despite a reliance on pre-programmed elements detracting from their live impact, a fascinating mix of genres holds attention, even without the dry, geeky humor of main-man Tommy Spender. Songs like Hotel Home and Magic Man have the audience onside in moments, so that when the saxophone comes out for jazz funk freak out of closer Never Again, everyone is smiling.

With the ‘sold out’ sign on the door long before she arrives on stage, Ainslie Wills instantly shows how this success has found her. Launching her second album You Go Your Way I’ll Go Mine yet writing and performing like a it’s her tenth, Wills and the brilliant band she has assembled manage to fit so much space and charged atmosphere into her songs they seem light years ahead of their contemporaries. One of the most obvious weapons in their arsenal against blandness is the fluid, imaginative work from guitarist and co-writer Lawrence Folvig, masterful in his balance of effects and melodies. Album highlights Mary and Lemon Japan showcase her jaw-droppingly expressive voice and the imaginative confidence of her arrangements to showcase it. Natalie Lewis’s invaluable harmonies are equally stunning during the room silencing build and release of Liquid Paper with its Yorke-esque swoops of melodies and lingering tension. Current single Fighting Kind is a crowd-rousing burst of twisting brilliance with calls to play it again coming as soon as it ends. Closing This is What I Write is skin-prickling in its beauty and with a delicate encore of Radiohead's Nude, closes one of the shows of the year.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

RISING TO PERFECTION: An interview with Laurent Brancowitz of Phoenix

French guitar pop group PHOENIX drop the guitars and buy ‘a shitty keyboard’ to make their sixth album Bankrupt!, but as LAURENT BRANCOWITZ tells ANDY HAZEL, it’s all about struggling for perfection.

Guitarist and quarter of one of the last decade’s most adored bands Phoenix, Brancowitz is amidst the early days of promoting their new synth-heavy album Bankrupt! and fresh from playing Saturday Night Live. “It was very exciting,” he explains, his strong French brogue accentuating his joy. “SNL is totally live so the excitement is at its peak, it makes everything more intense. We are happy with our performance because we did not fail, you know?” He laughs.

Though playing the songs almost daily, he hasn’t heard the album in months. “Actually, it’s good advice you’re giving me. A lot of time you play the songs and forget the original spirit. During [recording] I was very confident and happy, but right now I reach a level of fatigue. I have no idea if it’s good or bad, but that’s OK. I like this feeling of floating in the ocean and letting the stream do its job.”

Few bands break through with their fifth album, as Phoenix did with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Using the accrued wisdom of being in a stable band for ten years, they took a break and left their native Paris to record. Brancowitz explains that they knew the album would take some time to generate, so they went somewhere exciting. “When Adam Yauch from Beastie Boys offered us his studio - his small, cool studio in New York - it was just too good to say no to. For three months, we recorded there, then we finished in Paris, but the beginning was in New York. Some songs are really connected to this period, the vibe…the 80s East Village early Madonna vibe. I don’t know why but I was obsessed by it when I was there,” he explains. “When we were there we were very homesick and so we listened to a lot of French music from our childhood, so being in New York has made this even more French I think.”

The 80s synthesizer and percussion sounds that infuse Bankrupt! can be traced to this fixation. Often sounding as though M83 produced the album with Phoenix, songs like The Real Thing and Bourgeois are full of references to the era and to music the band loves. “We used the same drum machine as Prince…as an homage you know. We love doing that. All our music that is filled with little things like that, little connections, the memories you know, and little things we love. Some are from the 80s…like pre-Batman Prince we love. Actually, I don’t know why, but I was playing more keyboards this time than guitar. One day we went to Versailles to pick up some equipment, there we found a small shitty keyboard in a thrift shop, a 30-euro toy keyboard, and I fell in love with it, now it’s on every song. We love to use cheap instruments and beautiful instruments - the extremes are more interesting than everything that is in the middle, so on this album we have the best and the worst.”

Boasting that Bankrupt! would sound very different to earlier releases, many fans were surprised to hear lyrics and melodies from earlier Phoenix songs in the first single Entertainment and unsure whether this was laziness or an in-joke. “Your theories are true. We know that, and it’s hard for me to explain,” he laughs guiltily. “It just feels right to us, for sure should try to change, it’s more a sign of weakness. We always have the desire to make something very, very different and in the end we fail, we always sound like us,” Brancowitz explains in mock-despondency. “It’s a bit depressing, so yeah I guess this is as different as we can get, you know. We try so hard but we fail,” he laughs. “You can hear this desire in the music I think, to improve, to be better.”

Replacing the dreams that fuelled their early releases and initial success, Brancowitz explains that this failure is key to the band’s motivations. “We are very far from perfection, we are working on this tour but we are very far from what we have in mind. We have this goal and desire, and without this desire, life becomes very boring, so we are frustrated but at the same time we know if it was good already it would be very depressing.”

Chasing perfection, Brancowitz explains, is a core motivation for the band. Not to deny their humanness (his one-time membership in the band Darlin’ with both members of Daft Punk may indicate a shared fascination with the perfection/human dichotomy), but to celebrate it. “We always try to make perfection, but we never get there. We love things that are opposite; like the clockwork mechanism of a perfect song, but also the charm that is something you cannot describe or understand,” he explains keenly. “The more we grow up the more we know that the charm is the most important thing. You can have very shitty songwriting, but if you have this little thing, this unexplainable charm, it’s great. We try to combine these aspects, and it’s hard because they are fighting against it. Actually, the way we work even on record, we think very hard about the perfect mechanism and then when we have to execute it; record it. We usually use the first take. First take is usually not perfectly played, but the idea is to be good, the intention is to be good, but we’re not going for the perfect take. When we play live, there are a lot of mistakes but we consider them…artistic mistakes,” he laughs. “I am a pretty poor musician so I accept I’m good at necessary artistic mistakes. Sometimes the band does not see it that way, they get a bit angry,” he laughs, “but they are really nice about it most of the time.”

Looking back through pictures of the band, it seems singer Thomas Mars is photographed wearing the same shirt in almost every photo, suggesting that his wife, director Sofia Coppola, must be either incredibly accommodating or have no sense of smell. After unsuccessfully denying Mars’s penchant, Brancowitz confesses, “Thomas is an obsessive. When he has a shirt he likes he has it duplicated. He has dozens of the same thing, it’s more that than being a very dirty person, he is a perfectionist.” Phew.

Unable to say quite when the band is due back to these shores, Brancowitz insists that it is ‘soon’. “We are working on it right now. We love playing Australia and it was where we did the very first recording of this album, at a studio in Byron Bay, so for us it has a special meaning.”

STRANGELY FAMILIAR: An interview with Bob Evans

With the release of fourth album Familiar Stranger, BOB EVANS loses the acoustic guitars, gets

louder and thinks harder. ANDY HAZEL takes notes.

‘I think it’s me,’ says Kevin Mitchell (aka Bob Evans) laughing. ‘I’m the Familiar Stranger. Sometimes with introspection you start to view yourself as a different person, when you look at old photos, or a home video of yourself 10, 20 years ago and you think ‘I know that’s me’, but it’s like looking at a different person with different experiences, there’s a weird detachment that happens when you start doing that.’

Mitchell is chatty, relaxed and worthy of the ‘super friendly dude’ reputation that precedes him. Even in states of deep introspection, he’s jovial, likeable and almost impossibly humble. With buzz surrounding his latest singles Don’t Wanna Grow Up and Go (especially the latter’s cameo-boasting filmclip), the album is poised to be his boldest and most respected yet.

‘I like the title because Familiar Stranger summed up the kind of record I wanted to make,’ he continues. ‘I was trying to hold onto the familiar aspects of the last record that were important to me but I wanted to do something musically that was a bit more adventurous and a bit weirder.’

Though Mitchell isn’t about to break out a nose flute and jam with a minimalist Peruvian jazz ensemble, his latest album is more adventurous and daring than his previous three. The first of these allowed him to make the transition from fronting one of Australia’s most successful bands, Jebediah, and the following two won awards and legions of new fans. One thing that hasn’t changed is Mitchell’s sense of humour and sneaky references to other bands in his own songs. Get it Together features the line ‘All the kids queue around the bend / and they’re stuck trying to pretend / they’re in Vampire Weekend / Get it together’. ‘It just amuses me,’ he laughs, ‘its tongue in cheek. I’ve seen in the last few years it seemed like every fucking new band sounded like Vampire Weekend. It was funny, it makes me laugh, it’s like ‘oh here’s this new band…and, oh there it is…that Vampire Weekend influence’. It’s like when Jebediah were first starting everyone was trying to sing like Eddie Vedder, and I remember thinking ‘I don’t care how I sing, as long as I don’t sound like Eddie Vedder.’

Differences this time round though, are manifold both musically and thematically. ‘I’m singing to myself,’ he says changing tack. ‘The last two records there was definitely a sense that I was singing to somebody. On Suburban Songbook I was singing to my wife, almost that entire album is being sung to her, or I’m singing to friends. With this record it’s far more introspective and I really am singing to myself.’

To accentuate this, Mitchell decided rhythm section would be the birthplace of the songs, rather than having them driven by acoustic guitars, a factor that immediately changes their nature, such as the first single from the album Don’t Wanna Grow Up Anymore. ‘If you knew nothing about me, I didn’t want to sound like a guy with an acoustic guitar making a record. I wanted it to exist in its own space and not be immediately tied to a genre. As soon as you feel as though you’re tied to some kind of scene, I think it’s only natural to want to kick against it. I definitely felt that this time round, that I wanted to move out of that before it swallowed me up.’

The rhythm section around which Mitchell built these songs is no ordinary duo, as Mitchell explains. ‘I met Tony Buchan the bass player over dinner last year. We were sitting next to each other and I was telling him about this record I was about to make and what I was trying to do and I think I must have mentioned Joey Waronker (Atoms For Peace, Beck, Air, M83 etc) as the kind of drummer I wanted. Tony said ‘I know Joey, we’ve worked together’, and I said ‘fuck…that’s cool,’ and I guess he was my in. We sent the songs to Joey and he agreed to come out for five days, so I had my rhythm section. I felt so incredibly lucky to have those guys, they were perfect for the record. Tony was enthusiastic, and because he’s a producer as well, he understood what I was trying to do. He understood my references, understood exactly what I meant; it was just really fortuitous.’

Despite deciding that he wanted to get away from Nashville, the birthplace of the last two albums, and record at home, an offer to record at Melbourne’s legendary Sing-Sing Studios proved too good a chance to turn down. ‘I made the first Jebediah records there back in the 90s, and I never thought I’d ever go back there, just because it’s an expensive studio. It was nice because I’ve got such fond memories of the place and because it seemed…almost too good for me,’ he laughs. ‘I guess if I really wanted it to sound like an awesome version of my garage I would have recorded it in my garage, but I don’t have the means. I feel like I’ve only recently started to get good at making records,’ he says with his typical diplomacy. ‘It’s always been such a foreign thing to me, playing live was what it was all about. Making records was this thing I had to learn. For years, I don’t think Jebediah weren’t all that good at recording. Only in the last phase of my life have I started to get the hang of it.’

Seemingly reinvigorated from newfound fatherhood, and following a move from his hometown of Perth to his wife’s home of Melbourne, Mitchell has his next moved planned already should complacency strike. ‘What do you do when you’ve built a career writing about struggle, or losing love or falling in love, and before you know it you’re in your mid-30s, you’re married, you have a kid, you live in a house in the suburbs, you’ve got nothing else to write about? When I was making the Basement Birds album, we were sitting around and came up with the realisation of an answer. Politics,’ he says laughing loudly. ‘The world is always going to have problems; it’s a never-ending well of inspiration. Of course, I speak in jest, but who knows? Maybe I’ll just go on a drug bender and make a record like Tame Impala.’ He says smiling with a hint of danger in his eyes.

Keen to turn his lens outward, Mitchell doesn’t see social issues as being outside the realm of Bob Evans’s forthcoming songbooks ‘I think I could because I am reasonably well informed, I’d have to get over the self-conscious thing in my head saying ‘no one wants to hear you sing about this shit.’ There was a while there where I thought that about other subjects too, and when I starting off doing Bob Evans coming out of Jebediah I was worried ‘can I sing these love songs and stuff? Can I get away with pretending to be John Lennon?’ he says laughing loudly again.’ It’s hard to explain without sounding clichéd, but if you’re doing stuff for the wrong reasons, people can see through you, and can sniff it a mile away. I hold firmly to that belief. I think in Melbourne and Sydney, you’re so close to the internal mechanisms of the industry and fashion, and Perth is so far away from it that it’s a little bit less affected, but there are negatives to that as well. Perth can sometimes suffer from that small town mentality where people can fall into the trap of being big fish in a small pond, and they forget there’s a great big world out there. That’s the great thing about Tame Impala; they’re showing there is a great big world out there and it can be conquered, and you don’t have to change, you don’t have to sound like Vampire Weekend. Who I do love, don’t get me wrong, I just think Vampire Weekend are the best band at being Vampire Weekend.’

Live Review: LURCH AND THE CHIEF, TULLY ON TULLY, THE RED LIGHTS

The Workers Club, 30/03/2013

From the moment The Red Lights step on stage, the rapidly filling and chatty Workers Club snap to attention. Boasting tight, charging melodies and Dean Valentino’s laser-beam precision for guitar and vocal lines, the three-piece channel a rousing vein of clean guitar pop with bags of swagger. Ghosts, Radio and This Just In are Killer(s) Strokes of harmony-driven indie rock and an irresistible blast from the early 2000s. Their catchy hook-laden tracks let their set rise like a Phoenix from the hypoglycemic slump of a Good Friday evening; they’re the perfect choice for a Bloc Party. I’ll stop now.

Tully on Tully is a shining example how much great music there is in this town, and a reminder of how few great performers there are to sell it. Singer Natalie Foster is a mesmeric presence on stage; totally committed to the performance and fronting an incredibly proficient four-piece. Struggling against sound issues while dispatching their playlisted single Naked, it’s still clear they’re going from strength to strength with every gig a new high point and further evidence of Foster’s evolution to being a genuine star. The twisting heartbreaker So Close to Over is a sterling example of the songwriting chops at work, and with an album due later this year, it's thrilling to see a band this good before the spotlight reaches them. After a monstrous take on current single Stay they close with Going on Like This, its glorious spiraling guitar work and Foster’s bell-clear vocals earning the raucous audience reception.

Six-piece Lurch and Chief have gone from anonymity to packing out the Espy and now the Workers Club in under a year, and from their opening track it's easy to see why. Psych-pop hooks clash with southern rock attitudes in an intriguing way, and though the rock is played with reverence there is a sense of fun that infuses all they do. Without ever suggesting there is a chance of ‘losing control’ or getting too down and dirty, all the touchstones for an Australian Alabama Shakes/Black Keys are present; hirsute frontman who looks like he drove the band here in his Chevy, wailing girl soul singer, crunching riffs and deep and loose rhythm section. The burgeoning talent, curiously long song structures (essentially adhered riffs rather than verse/chorus) and stage proficiency mean they're only going to get more and more known, and for the right reasons; tonight’s audience are already vocal converts. All the sounds are spot on (particularly single I’ll See You on Planet Z), the look is fantastic and singers Hayden Somerville and Lili Hall work well together, but the ingredients haven't quite found their right amounts yet. It won't take long, and it will be fantastic when it does (I predict a Golden Plains 2014 slot and Jack White to be a fan). Tonight’s single launch for stellar closing track On Your Own is a pitstop on a journey to greatness.

Andy Hazel

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Live Review: PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED, HARMONY

The Palace, 11/04/2013

Harmony takes to the stage before a half-full Palace, which is, as expected, mostly comprised of gentlemen witness to the headliner’s last tour in 1989. More a variation of sonic forces than a set of songs, the band’s excoriating blues and ferocious Australiana are devastatingly effective. Always a tough act to follow (just ask anyone on day two of Golden Plains 2012), the variety of textures and emotions Harmony span within a song is impressive, and largely due to their imaginative musicianship, and songs’ disorienting construction. Tom Lyngcoln's incendiary guitar work remains determinedly economical for a man recently voted one of the Top 40 guitarists in this country’s history. Notes singe but never linger, chords sound like a free jazz horn trio; it’s a disorienting, hellish perfection.

'Good evening Melbourne,’ proclaims John Lydon, as Public Image Limited assemble. Dressed in an oversized plaid shirt and resembling an exasperated chicken with his cockscomb hair, pulled in chin, rotund tum and flapping arms, Lydon is on full power from the get go. His voice powerful and evocative, the show is essentially about him and his concerns, and we’re captivated. Technical brilliance was never a term associated with punk or post-punk, but tonight Lydon makes a case for being one of the most overlooked vocal talents in history. His lyrical acuity never questioned, he moves effortlessly from the Muslim-call-to-prayer of opener Four Enclosed Walls to the ensuing caustic fury of Albatross with its dark, suffocating locked groove. The band, made up of talent from Slits, The Pop Group and The Spice Girls’ live band (no, really), specialise in piercing guitar and tight, rolling rhythms, solidly reinforcing Lydon as he wrestles truth. Highlights of the set come from their classic Metal Box album and the writing team of Lydon, Keith Levene and Jah Wobble. The phenomenal Swan Lake/Death Disco merges a subterranean bassline, clustering shards of guitar and Lydon actually crying as he relates the story of his mother’s death, which, sadly, could double for the passing of his stepdaughter Ari Up another victim of cancer.

‘This person’s had enough of useless memories!’ he later sneers, leading the band through Memories, another arctic blast from the past. Songs from 2012’s comeback This is PiL album stand up well; Deeper Waters, Reggie Song and the titanic dub of One Drop all show no drop in power or conviction. Crowd involvement reaches a peak during This is Not a Love Song (’Melbourne, show me your fucking dance moves. You need more Aborigine’ he waspishly remarks). The barbing continues during Warrior; ‘Australia, are you a warrior?’ [Cheers]. Is this YOUR land?’ [Confused silence].

Always needling, even when the rhythms are at their most danceable, Lydon leads us out with a euphoric take on Theme, which ends with on a resounding ‘good-BYE!’ Cheered back on, the set closes with Rise (‘WHAT is anger? / Anger is an en-er-gy!’) and a surprise revisiting of Leftfield & Lydon’s banging 90s club anthem Open Up proving that whether aiming for the mind or body, Lydon knows that the truth never misses.

Live Review: DEAP VALLY, GUNG HO

Northcote Social Club, 6/04/2013

'We're Gung Ho from Brisbane thanks for coming down' says bassist and singer Oliver Duncan, to the fans huddled at the foot of stage. Often in danger of being overshadowed by the charisma of drummer James Wright, songs ease in and out of moods; the chugging bass lines and whipped beats underpinning Michael McAlary’s fluid guitar riffs and vocal melodies. First single Twin Rays showcases Wright’s sticksmanship, and is a clear highlight. Between in-jokes, matey banter and moments of genuine fun and hilarity, Gung Ho punch a dynamite set full of clean and heavy riff-driven Rapture-esque post punk. Current single Strangers and closing triumph Side By Side are further great examples of atmospheric, breakneck pop, but even more than that, Gung Ho are guys you want to spend time with.

Seemingly in existence for about half an hour (though actually formed in 2011), California two-piece Deap Vally hit the stage to rowdy cheers. Bedecked in sequins and denim, drummer Julie Edwards and guitarist and singer Lindsey Troy look as though nothing after 1977 – bar a set of extra-heavy guitar strings - ever entered their consciousness. True to blues-rock form, instrumentation (and, in this case, clothing) is sparse and room for personality is large, so within a few songs you feel you know a little about the duo. In fact, several pledges of marriage are shouted and coyly dispatched before the end of the third song. 'Hello Melbourne, we have found our homeland it's called Melbourne,’ smiles Edwards. ‘Sydney was a warm up show for tonight, this is cookin'. And it is. Every song gets louder cheers, a more raucous mosh and a makes for a hoarser, huskier and happier Troy. After one particularly energetic tussle in the crowd Edwards interjects - 'one of you just got fucked up by rock and roll. My apologies and congratulations all at the same time; it’s like bein’ shat on by an ibis'.

Current single Lies (‘a song about an Australian gentleman’), and previous single End of the World are behemoths. Walk of Shame (‘Does that register with anybody? No? You're being coy! Would someone bring me another whiskey?') would earn a thousand Meredith boots. Rarely playing more than one humungous note at a time, Troy hacks at her Mustang to devastating effect. Songs are skeletal; thumping glam rhythms, bass-driven buzzing guitar riffs and howled excoriating vocals. Troy’s voice is a formidable weapon and their songs are excellent vehicles for it. An encore of possibly the heaviest and darkest version of I Put a Spell on You sees Troy collapsing, mic-stand and all, into the front row, consumed by a rabidly affectionate crowd. Rumours of their return for Splendour should see this crowd size quadruple within months.

Monday, April 8, 2013

A VICTIM, A SURVIVOR, A TRIUMPH: An interview with Charles Bradley

With the release of his second album Victim of Love modern soul icon CHARLES BRADLEY tells ANDY HAZEL about life, the universe and how to look back without breaking down.

‘Oh man, it was a beautiful feeling and God knows it’s way overdue because I’ve been fighting for this opportunity for a long time and I have a lot I still want to do,’ says Charles Bradley, not stopping for breath. Expounding on his second album Victim of Love, the soul singer whose explosive performance was a highlight of last year’s Golden Plains is clearly overjoyed at having another record out. ‘Each album is just a product of these experiences I have and a lot has happened to me,’ he explains. A bigger understatement you’re unlikely to ever read.

His trials and misfortunes are almost unprecedented in any living performer; an unknown father, homeless from the age of 14, near death from an allergic reaction to penicillin, the violent and graphic murder of his brother, two counts of wrongful imprisonment…it’s the real deal. It’s also something that Bradley is very willing to talk about, despite often being brought to tears. In fact, few interviews or concerts don’t result in his breaking down, something he confesses to doing when recording too.

Like Jimmy Scott, Bradley is a performer who exudes the hope that sustains him. ‘Singing is to me a great joy and pain,’ he says in his rich expressive voice. ‘When it hurts, I go to the joy part, and when it’s joyous, I can go the pain part. I’m learning that heartache and pain bring the lyrics out of me, and I’m learning how to do it without breaking down now. I write all of the lyrics, and even though they hurt, I’d rather be able to express myself a little more deeply without trying to avoid the hard parts. This is what I’m learning about myself now, about how to talk about my life and my experiences, which is so hard.’

Victim of Love is, like his 2011 debut No Time for Dreaming an astonishing collection of soul songs, and again features members of the Daptones stable backing him with reflexive proficiency, always keeping Bradley’s searing voice at the centre. “I’m very happy with how it sounds,’ he explains. ‘There are some songs I really love on this record, Victim of Loving You, Love Bug Blues, Confusion; I can really get into them, get nasty with it,’ he chuckles hollowly. ‘I love every moment of singing those.’

Working with bandleader and co-writer Tom Brenneck may seem logical from an outsider standpoint – Brenneck and other members of Daptone Records brought Sharon Jones to international attention - but with a natural distrust of those who offer to help a side-effect of Bradley’s years of rough living, their musical partnership didn’t develop easily. ‘At first it was hard,’ he says slowly. ‘We came from different backgrounds. He’s white middle class, he came from a loving background, and he was trying to help me. I felt very bitter, and coming from living in the hood, I did not know he was being real. I had to learn where he was coming from. I was not use to races living and working together like that,’ he pauses. ‘Tom and I got really into writing and recording, into bringing my soulfulness into the world as pure as it can be. That’s what people like to hear. He chose the name too,’ he continues. ‘When he chose it everybody asked me about it and I am the victim of love. It’s brought me low, it’s brought me up again too, but I’ve never had one true love in my life.’

With hopes to return to Australia later this year, his main love now, he says, is people. ‘By travelling all over the world and meeting so many people, I’ve seen that everybody wants the same thing; all they’re looking for is love and understanding. And that’s what I found, it took a while, but it’s real now.’

Friday, March 22, 2013

Live Review: WAX WITCHES, STEP-PANTHER, FOAM

The Gasometer, 16/03/2013

Hell-bent on punishing those who didn't bring earplugs, tonight’s lineup wrestle punk from history and blast away its more polished proponents in a three-way match of guitar-driven intensity. Perth trio Foam know how to construct a fearsome riff and deliver it with unerring accuracy, particularly when playing tracks off their new EP Run Kon Koma; a coursing, fizzling howl of vitality and rage. Most of the set sounds (and looks) like underground Seattle shows in the late 80s, though with a far more static crowd. Between incredibly tight bursts of guttural punk, singer Joel Martin cracks decent jokes that seem to embarrass his bandmates, though their sense of humour rarely seems to (discernibly) break into their songs. The slower So Far So Good highlights Martin's American twang and closes a set that acts as a road map of sorts to an underground Perth.

Sydney's Step-Panther sneak on second despite being the big draw, and though less relentless, they're no less a ferocious unit. Launching their Dream Crusher EP they open with Nowhere and Never Again, singer Steve Bourke's vocals gleaning a tinge of reverb and his Danelectro shooting sparks as spiralling riffs and dexterous lead runs push up against the beat, urging the songs forward. Maybe Later is ridiculously catchy and makes it's easy to see why NME picked them as one of 2013's Bands to Watch (something you can be sure means absolutely nothing to the small but riotous crowd here). Bourke’s songs channel a very bright cataclysmic euphoric despondency and feature some truly inspired guitar work. Closing with the brilliant loathing of Zombi and its despondent chant of 'I hope this summer never ends', they’re one of the smartest bands to play dumb.

Wax Witches meanwhile don't play anything but fast, hard and as if nothing’s sacred. 'This is my friend Josh. He plays drums,’ says singer and guitarist Alex Wall. ‘We started this band two days ago,' he lies happily. Launching their Celebrity Beatings LP the duo pull Ramones count-ins, Black Flag riffs, Dead Kennedys sneers and a Pixies cover (Wave of Mutilation) - whatever it takes to make a killer show. Despite having a lot of fun expressing a snotty disregard for everything, the band have an almost Reatardian way with brevity, melody and knowing when the job's done. Seemingly still in early days (despite the band being Wall’s side-project from Bleeding Knees Club), they almost seem to be playing to each other at times, which doesn’t stop the small, vocal but self-conscious crowd draw closer to the stage and head-banging; 'you might be a small crowd but it doesn't mean you're any less of a crowd than any other crowd' Wall says in mock seriousness. Nightmares sounds like it could be a Germs cover, so masterful is its simplicity. Crashing cymbals, constant riffs and perpetual speed, Wax Witches bring levity to their heaviness, as songs like Gay Batman, Everytime I Try and Fuck Shit Up amply prove. So good, it was almost like the Arthouse in here tonight.

Live Review: THE MORNING NIGHT, THE STAFFORDS, HOUNDSTOOTH

The Cornish Arms, 15/03/13

Houndstooth, a local four-piece - tonight playing as a trio - do a nice line in emotive folk rock songs without distracting the punters too much from their drinking and chatting. Singer Penny Walker-Keefe's sweet, naive vocals match her guitar style well. Songs are penned with a fresh proficiency and boast an imaginative way with melodies; though their fleshing out seems perfunctory it’s hard to get a true impression with a quarter of the band absent. The lack of sensitivity shown by a very loud and trebly rhythm section doesn’t help either, their sound bouncing around the mostly empty room to little effect.

Tight, snappy, well rehearsed, enthusiastic, these are all words that accurately describe The Staffords’ performance tonight, and its not surprising that it goes down a treat with the gradually growing audience. As if transported from 1981, the band’s new wave power-pop sound is easy to love, and the talent on display impressive; few three-piece’s sound this solid. Mike Barnes and Phoebe Neilson’s harmonies are evocative and used in a refreshingly powerful way. If in times very in debt to The Jam their closing cover of Neil Young's Mr Soul goes down a storm and reminds you of other recent shows that may explain why punter numbers are lower than usual tonight.

Those that are here respond vocally to Jim Murray’s acute DJing selections that keep the infectious positivity high before the young Perth combo The Morning Night open with their devastating take on the Triffids’ Monkey on My Back. Singer Adrian Hoffman's charging performance helps the band make a resolute stab at owning this most sacred of sounds. The band's original material tends toward the less strident end of the rock spectrum but is no less powerful for it, thanks largely to Hoffman's vocals and commanding presence. Ensuing track Trees sees the whole band kicking into gear; Brendan Gaspari's atmospheric guitar work, bassist Michael Savage’s exploiting the power of a good bass riff and drummer Jesse Brown’s powerful yet imaginative timekeeping. Pulling out highlights from their Otis album, tracks like Taking Your Time and Love You Better prove they could easily be massive; they have the hooks, handsomness, work ethic, are prolific and have achieved a lot without hitting their mid-20s. With Ricky Maymi producing their new (and previous) album, his influence infuses A Ride With Violence; a feedback drenched BRMC-style headlong psych-pop charge, highly addictive and a worthy single from their forthcoming album. Continuing the close-your-set-with-a-cover tradition, the band finish with a gunning take on the Easybeats’ I'll Make You Happy, proving they’re going to be a band you’ll hear a lot more of before the year is out.

Live Review: GOLDEN PLAINS

Beneath a scorching sun and steady breeze, happy campers set up, hydrate, dehydrate and lounge in their campsites, as the amphitheatre begins to fill, and grass is turned to dust by thousands of tramping, dancing feet...

Money For Rope is an excellent choice for opening band. Sometimes reminiscent of the Stones, the Doors, the Clash and a dozen other not quite plagiarised sounds, it’s the occasional, faster songs like Ten Times that stand out and the band sound like the good time you want to have. The band’s harmonies really set them apart from other local rock combos, and they prove to be the first of many excellent programming choices Aunty Meredith offers.

Boasting a strangely smooth psych-soul sound, New Zealand’s Opossum follow and lure some of the curious forward, though most seem content admiring from afar, which is a shame, as the it seems the sun saps much of the energy not spent on opening the drinks account. Songs like Why Why and Girl are blazing blasts of Kiwi jangle with colon troubling bass, distant reverb-drenched drums, and floating vocals, an easy mix to love.

Not a skin disease but actually one of the world’s finest lyra players Adonis Xylouris (aka Psarandonis) is a fantastic left-turn from guitar-dominated bands Australian festivals do so well. Featuring the ever-watchable Jim White on drums, the trio’s set is striking for the musicians’ interplay, Xylouris beating the strings as often as bowing them, wielding the traditional Greek instrument like a Les Paul and looking like a cross between Gandalf and Gandhi, it’s a fantastic set.

One of the most anticipated acts and one of 2011’s buzz bands, Wild Nothing, blend indie pop and shoegaze and are a winner with those here who also went to Laneway. It’s perfect music for tired people, perhaps because the band themselves seem to be lackadaisical in their delivery and performance. Songs like Nocturne and the rousing, closing Summer Holiday gel beautifully, but overall their set is a disappointment from the quality of their recordings and the audience response is similarly muted.

Between sets last year’s Sunday speaker Barry Dickens reads his poignant, funny and pertinent poetry to a largely attendant crowd. His pithy treatises on our current personal, communal, political and generational states are an excellent substitute for mid-afternoon DJ sets and only serve to accentuate the bands either side of his appearances.

‘What the fuck are we doing here?’ asks No Zu’s Nicolaas Oogjes, and it’s a fair question for anyone who hasn’t seen the band before. Rhetorically, they dive into their set and pull out a series of percussion-lead post-punk jams that energise the amphitheatre like nothing else yet. The band’s rock solid rhythm section allow the copious echo effect and rich vocalisations from singer Daphne Shum to float effortlessly as the brash inflections wake the crowd up, move feet and win new fans.

With the ground full of the younger end of the demographic Golden Plains attracts, the sun less cruel and shadows stretching, the stage empties to just a chair, a guitar and a couple of small amps set side-stage. Moments later Kristian Matsson aka The Tallest Man on Earth leaps out, jumps enthusiastically and stares down the audience. This sort of wired performance is not let go of for his whole spellbinding set, and it divides much of the crowd. Songs like King of Spain, 1904, Criminals, Love is All and The Gardener get huge singalongs and the ensuing Wind and Walls the biggest showing of shoes for the festival, though these shoes are of a younger and far more stylish variety than tomorrow’s contenders earn. Mistaking the shoes for weapons, Matsson seems briefly confused before finishing his set with a cover of Graceland, accompanied by his wife fellow singer-songwriter Amanda Bergman. Regardless of your opinion, his guitar fingering skills and ability to pointlessly hurl a plectrum across a stage are intimidating.

Typically divisive and owner of the coveted sunset slot, Cat Power follows and spends several songs (Cherokee, You May Know Him) leading her band through snails-pace churning riffs, utilizing about 0.5% of their abilities and losing many of the curious. Her dour charisma and wounded voice is talismanic to much of the crowd but only grips attention when J Mascis joins for Metal Heart and closes her set with a disarming and brave stab at combining Boys Next Door’s Shivers with INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart; a strange and not entirely successful venture.

DAY TWO

The morning sun rises on a dusty encampment, soon populated by thousands of weary soldiers, sporting the festival armour of sweat, sunscreen, dust, hand sanitizer and sunnies, dragged out of messy tents by the promise of Bushwalking. An oddly awesome supergroup, the band open proceedings with calm assertion and killer riffs. Karl Scullin’s excoriating guitar sound, Nina Venerosa and Ela Stiles’ stellar harmonies and the dubwise gambits of their mixer make 10AM in Meredith feel like 4AM in Birmingham, though the patience of many a punter is tested by their My Disco-esque favour for simplicity and repetition.

Breaking for a brief chat with festival landowner and originator Jack Nolan, we learn of his son (and annual festival launcher) Chris’s love of farm-based parties and the organic growth the festival took. Like Dickens’ poetry the previous day, provides another chance to ponder what this festival is besides a series of usually excellent bands and offer an ear-resting pause while savouring breakfast.

A clear festival highlight for many is the ensuing set from Dick Diver, offering a sense of humour interlaced with their humbly-intended and unadorned paeans to Melbourne life. On the verge of dropping their second album Calendar Days (most of which we hear today), the audience don’t take long to get alongside, and songs like Water Damage, the brilliant Head Back and a rousing cover of Dragon’s Are You Old Enough earn more than a few boots aloft.

Coinciding with a merciful cloud cover and a cool change come Mulatu Astatke and the Black Jesus Experience. Billed as a 1960s Ethiopian pop pioneer backed by a local Afrobeat combo, what we get seems to be some incredibly proficient mellow jazz-fusion, which is nice but utterly forgettable. The crowd seem content to chill and observe as the smoothness oozes, until Astatke switches from vibraphone to congas and suddenly everything springs to life. Sounding joyously alive and boasting some vibrant rhythms and stellar vocals from the BJE, an expropriation of As We Enter from Damian Marley and Nas (who sampled Astatke) closes what turns out to be a riotous and fun set.

The highlight of the Sunday for many comes in the form of a local duo bent on recreating the most hellish end of 50s juke joints. Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk are essentially a community radio DJs dream; lovingly recreating the sound of a massive 50s and 60s record collection and doing it in a way that screams ‘I may not be from the Deep South, but I am as real as it gets’. If you can hear a white guy singing about picking cotton in the fields and NOT think of Ghost World’s Blueshammer you’re doing better than me, but whatever you think, they’re very good at what they do. Russell’s guitar heaves and crunches, Dean Muller’s drums crash and drive, and their song Bad Motherfucker cracks smiles across every face in the place earning a lot of boot salutes and new fans.

Unlike Redd Kross, who bring showmanship by the boatload, power pop crunch and big riffs but no memorable songs. Their harmonies are tight, riffs big and the guitar wails authentically, and despite several hyperactive fans, and a hundred odd nodding straw hats, the audience thins as their set progresses. Songs like It’s a Crazy Crazy World seem ill suited to the venue, and that their newest song was from 1992, speaks volumes.

The crowd size triples and the average age plummets as Toro y Moi assemble and unleash a brace of dense electro funk. Seemingly doing everything possible to fight against the term ‘chillwave’ Chazwick Bundick (aka both Toro and Moi) brings a forceful approach to playing that refuses to let the listener rest. Still as much about atmosphere as narrative, their mood pivots as the well rehearsed four-piece render the crowd a writhing mass of sweat-soaked jelly limbs.

Swapping the crowd yet again comes another shift in tone as riff behemoths The Mark of Cain ensure that anyone who was even a passing fan remains glued to the spot, head nodding or arms aloft. Separatist bludgeons us into submission or arrests us to attention; the trio barely moving a muscle (besides drummer John Stainier’s stand-in Eli Green) while issuing round after round of assaults. Milosevic, The Contender and Tell Me all rouse the faithful and repel the twee.

Maintaining the low-slung guitar and blinding riff aesthetic Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are as hot tipped as a band can be. A spluttered introduction of ‘we’ve come all the way from New York City to be with you people!’ before countless cries of ‘blues explosion!’ let you know no one else could be here. Eschewing a series of songs for an amalgam of riffs and hints of tracks both old and new, Spencer toys with expectations, and shoves his mic between his teeth as the band huddle to the front of the stage, plying riff after nonstop riff. Comparatively subdued compared to last year’s tour, new album Black Mold is heavier and most of its hooks make an appearance, sandwiched against Bellbottoms, Sweat and a dynamite Bag of Bones.

After ten years in the game and on the eve of the release of their first album the seventeen-strong Melbourne Ska Orchestra are a seasoned unit that goes down well with the crowd. Not attempting to blaze a trail, the good times they profess are easy to jig to, and just as easy to flee from, and a good many goers use their opportune timing to grab a meal from one of the many excellent providores the festival boasts. In addition to these, special mention must be made of the fluro-vested volunteers who do an excellent job of tidying, minding, assisting and manning and ensuring the festival is another raging success.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Live Review: THE STONE ROSES, ZANE LOWE

Festival Hall, 07/03/2013

To a rapidly filling room, BBC Radio 1 DJ and mixmaster Zane Lowe acts like a shat Russell Brand, playing a song “for all the Stone Roses fans out there,” badgering our hands into the air and keeping the beats big and bass heavy. Lowe gives it everything he’s got, but the average age here tonight is a bit high for a whole-body response to his energetic cuts and hectoring. Lowe smacks the mixer, dances with the USB-decks and plays a mix of cold, strobe-lit electro and warm bubbly synth bass, but no matter who he is or what he’s doing, he can’t leave the stage soon enough.

With only a goldfish in a bowl to distract us from the wait, it seems an eternity before The Stone Roses stride out to a round of deafening roars and it’s a full minute before bassist Mani can ease into the intro of I Wanna Be Adored, the song itself nearly drowned out by the crowd singing along; even the guitar melodies are sung note for fleeting note. It takes about 15 minutes for Festival Hall to earn its more infernal nickname as the sweaty mass crush against the barrier and from seemingly nowhere (perhaps beamed in from a football terrace in Manchester, 1989), several hundred boisterous Englishmen claim the band and venue for their own, initiating a round of elbow thrusts alternating with shrugged shoulders and ‘not me mate!’ expressions.

Continuing with Mersey Paradise, the crowd noises ease to jet engine level and the skill of each band member becomes clearer. Mani never drops a note, John Squire’s deft ambling over his guitar neck, the brilliant, rock solid beats and fills of Reni and, drawing everyone’s attention, the loping, aping Ian Brown. Sounding unusually (Auto?)tuneful in a way that reminds more of their legendary eponymous album than any live recording you could Google, Brown is vibrant in crisp baggy jeans and his ‘monkey man’ vibe, his timeless cheekbones framing a frequent grin as he gestures and sneaks winks at audience members.

The stifling heat seems not to bother the goldfish, but everyone else is saturated in sweat. iPhone wallpaper pictures of kids are thrust aside as cameras are pushed into the air with predictable frequency. Sugar Spun Sister, Sally Cinnamon, Ten Storey Love Song andSomething’s Happening follow, each played with precision and passion. A stripped-down version of Fools Gold catches the band in a rawer state, but disappoints no one. A glorious take on Waterfall/Don’t Stop sees the crowd get riled up despite it being the gentlest song they play. Closing with a fringe-banging swagger of She Bangs The Drum and anthemic I Am The Resurrection, this is one return we never expected to see, and can be eternally grateful we did. As the band link arms, embrace and accept the rapturous adulation before disappearing, Brown shouts out ‘one love!’ and vanishes backstage while the crowd detach themselves from each other and peel off into warm night air, dazed and happy.

Live Review: DEEP PURPLE, JOURNEY

Rod Laver Arena, 01/03/2013

Phew! Technical proficiency hey? Not often you get to see a band bursting into extended instrumental breaks in a packed and enthralled stadium, but then it’s not often you see a lineup like this. Journey’s early set (nothing says ‘old men at work’ like a 7:15PM start), is packed with spiraling lights, colossal riffs and massive drum fills from the opening blast of Separate Ways, and there’s no let up. Boasting just one original member, guitarist Neil Schon (who is far more taken with noodling around on the pentatonic scale than actually playing a song), it’s the vibrant enthusiasm of singer Arnel Pineda, the Philippine living every Idol contestant’s dream who earns attention. Though the suggestion that Steve Perry’s iconic vocals were outsourced belittles the talent and energy the incredibly youthful Pineda brings, recent quote from keyboardist Jonathan Cain describing him as ‘the future for our franchise’ speaks volumes as loud as Deen Castronovo’s kick drum. Every sound is gigantic; every cymbal kept swinging, every available plectrum flung into the crowd, every song boasting a Superbowl guitar solo. Any Way You Want It, Forever Yours, One Love and Wheel in the Sky are all epic, but none touch the crowd response to THAT song. Don’t Stop Believin’ is everything the crowd want and before the opening riff finishes, the arena is lit by phones and the opening lines sung as one.

Against a smaller, less illuminated backdrop, the titans of heavy metal launch into the sprawling behemoth of Fireball, all caterwauling organ solos, thudding bass and Ian Gillan’s screeched vocals, a man who looks in urgent need of laxatives. Easing into Hard Lovin’ Man then Maybe I’m a Leo, guitarist Steve Morse proves himself a fiery replacement for Richie Blackmore, his fluid lead lines fully validating Australian Guitarist Magazine’s investment in the tour. Morse's solos – and there are a lot of them - are so compressed and busy that they stand at odds with the big valve crunch of Blackmore and the 'sound' of early Deep Purple, but they're a different band now. Whether that's the band the punter is paying for is another question, but Gillan’s vocals suggest enough to keep the audience spellbound and the entertainment level never drops.

Deep Purple is one of the few bands that will give you a five-minute drum solo in a stadium. No One Came boasts an organ solo that sees the rotating Leslie speakers nearly taking off with the intensity of Don Airey's playing. Displays of technical virtuosity lead us into Perfect Strangers and Space Truckin’ both of which bring the audience to their feet, fists in the air, but fists become phones for Smoke on the Water. Howled back for an encore of their first big hit Hush the band leave us with a titanic, skull-rattling version of Black Night ending our short trip back to the days when being a musician meant being able to play an instrument well; no bad thing at all.

Live Review: THE WEDDING PRESENT

Northcote Social Club,27/02/13

Unlike last night's sold out sauna of a show, this, the second of two concerts Leeds' finest are treating us to, has a loose, friendly and intimate feel from the moment the band step on stage. Tonight sees them run through The Hit Parade, a compilation of their Guinness Book of World Records-listed collection of singles (twelve charting singles in twelve months). The nearly full room is populated mainly by men who bought The Hit Parade when its songs were still A and B-sides, all of whom are in the throes of excited adoration from the spectacular sour emphatic jangling of opener Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah.

David Gedge, the man who essentially is The Wedding Present, is as comfortable warmly chatting as he is dispatching acerbic barbs. He pulls out the 'it’s so nice to be back, it seems like only yesterday' gag, which is no less funny for being obvious. This sense of humour fuels Wedding Present classics that get an airing tonight, like Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft, Spider Man on Hollywood and My Favourite Dress, still doubling as an incendiary slice of futile malice despite now being rendered despondently rather than with the vitriol that fuelled its 1987 release. A blistering, face-reddening take of Kennedy follows and the audience are borne along on his careering, slashing chords and the tight deftness of his backing band. Guitarist Geoff Maddock of Kiwi bands Bressa Creeting Cake and Goldenhorse is responsible for the emphatic riffs and works fantastically with Gedge to recreate the harsh, unaffected jangle that the Wedding Present made their own. After the fantastic Mystery Date, we’re lead via Come Play With Me and California – further exercises in pithy economy – into The Hit Parade section of the show.

By now amp valves and vocal cords are warmed up and the guitars' satisfying crunch and Gedge’s bolshy utterances give the songs extra drive, and the set flows from high point to high point, despite a frequent breaking of guitar strings. 'There’s a nostalgic aspect to George Best. It clouds your vision. These are better songs. It's better tonight,' Gedge says to affirming cheers. The slippery melodies of Sticky and heavy riffs of Love Slave ensue. ‘We don’t do encores. It’s nothing personal,’ Gedge tells us before issuing the closing salvo of No Christmas and Deer in the Headlights with abandon; every rhythmic, hunched nod from Gedge sending a shotglass worth of sweat flying off to the floor.