Warning: very shorthand reviews. Not really proper music critique - more a way of recording and remembering what I've seen since I started writing this down. Also, I ordered them poorly and will maybe fix at some point.
2024 Gig Reviews
16/2/24 Whelk; Face Face; Aquatico. Shotkickers.
Whelk were incredible. Seamless; ethereal. At this end there was this drumming part that reminded me of the weirder Total Control songs - just without the guitar. Dreamlike. What every spoken word /ambient peep aspires to. Face Face were solid. Injected a bit of current politics into their set with a song about one of the current ministers. Worked well but I don't have any other thoughts. Now, Aquatico apparently played their first headline show this night. I think they are one of the Melbourne bands I have seen the most now - mostly cause I don't seem to see a lot of bands more than twice. But they killed it. I'd love to see some more experimental material from them. I heard someone in the audience describe it as ADHD-punk which definitely gave me something to think about whilst I grooved to the music.
1/2/24 Daniel Champagne. The Frankston Arts Centre.
Last saw Daniel Champagne play in Canberra at Smiths Alternative. Must've been like 2018 or something. Anyway, when I chatted to Daniel after the show he fondly remembers Smiths and knows a few other Canberra venues as well. But onto the music... Just a mindblowing performance. The guys technique is so good that it just has to be marveled. Good balance between letting his voice shine and his guitar shine. The set ended well and people were invited to touch the guitar if they wanted to. That thing was so battered it looked to be a hundred years old. Daniel said it was custom made to hold up to touring with him.
27/1/24 The Noise; The Subordinates. Nevermind Bar.
First gig of the year for me. Should be an interesting year for me gig wise. Starting a full-time job after finishing uni so will have less energy for gigs but also getting braver at going to see bands play on my own. Anwyay onto the review. The Noise mostly did old school covers. Fairly good bath of distorted guitar. Don't think it would impress the more critical pundits though. Good with cheap beer. The Subordinates had a weird energy going. Looked straight out of the 70s. At point a band member tried to kiss another but was rebuffed. That's all to report back on.
2022 and 2023
3/3/23 James Rushford; Hantu. Tempo Rubato. Liquid Architecture.
I went into this gig not knowing what to expect. I'd recently listened to an EP from Hantu which was right up my alley - ambient backing with acoustic instrumental over the top. So I figured with Hantu doing DJ'ing between Rushford's sets, then it probably gonna be a good gig - which was definitely the case. Summing up Rushford's performance, I think the word "tasteful" is sufficient. The chosen piano compositions tastefully transitioned from one to the other, and the electronic accompaniment hit the spot. In the second half, a woman sitting next to me was increasingly drunk and just was such a contrast to the kind of music going on. I didn't mind, though. She was saying that she was an old school friend of Rushford's and couldn't help but scream each time he came on stage. One final thing to mention: the set runtime sheet had incredible graphic design done for it - kind of added to the whole experience.
19/2/23 Darby; S.wells; Jim Dusty. Old Bar.
When Darby started their set, a lot of people were still yet to arrive or out the back smoking - so for the first couple of songs, something about the fingerpicking in a slowly filling bar gave it a kind of liminal feel. Beautiful and intimate performance. Crowd banter about being hungover gives Darby bonus points. S.wells. Really diverse rock sound. Definitely need to listen to them more. Jim Dusty - Canberra legend. Really has perfected the combination of persona, aesthetic, and music as performance art. Excellent performance.
31/1/23 MIUC - Special curation by David Shea from VCA: Richard Munro; Zari Scott Schrude; Finn Inkster; Kris Lee; Joshua Trappett; Diamond Lee; Dean James Eliot; Liam Harper. Bar Open.
Writing this review a few weeks later, I've forgotten most of the essential details. Of note was the fusion between video recordings and music - which is something that I believe should be more prominent in live performance; however, these ones weren't really to my taste. I'm pretty sure the musician that stood out most to me was Diamond Lee - fused really well experimental electronic with melodic singing.
12/12/22 Girl & Girl; Dry Cleaning. The Corner. Girl & Girl were really good. They just had a vibe. Frontman had really strong energy - almost Morrissey-esque. They were just the opener but they engaged really well with the audience. The vocalist also had a kind of unique vibrato singing that I feel like I have only ever heard in the band Wayne Szalinski.
Similarly, Florence, the lead of Dry Cleaning just was captivating to watch. She just had this really intense stare into the crowd and just delivered. I almost feel like the only disappointing thing was that barely anybody was dancing because the energy from the band was incredible. Bonus points to the guitarist for opening with a 12 string guitar.
6/12/22 Body Type; Pixies. The Forum.
Body Type had a kind of retro punk vibe with a relaxed energy at times. I think would be really good to see at a pub. A bit tough opening for a big band like Pixies cause I think seeing Body Type live at another time could get raucous.
Pixies were great. Meant to focus on the album's Surfer Rosa and Come On Pilgrim but played them out of order so not as cohesive as when I saw Ride last week. Also, drums way too loud and covered up the bass which is a shame.
30/11/22 Moaning Lisa; Ride. The Forum. Really big throwback to see Moaning Lisa on a big stage after watching them for years at the Phoenix in Canberra. First couple song were meh but the last few were a bit more drawn out and psychedelic which I liked. Got me thinking about bands from Canberra I used to like a few years. Wish I had seen Limited Express a few more times. Ride were superb. Really good musicianship. On par with the recording because they played really well and added interesting things without the sound suffering.
29/11/22 MIUC: Nat Grant/Zelda Papageorgiou/Justin Ashworth; Subject '/\'/3_C_3; OV Pain/Noah Reynolds. Bar Open. the first act in particular were a masterclass. Drumming and glockenspiel paired wonderfully with modular synthesizers.
27/11/22 First and Forever. Various Artists. Hanging Rock.
Lots of different artists. Many of them collaborated together on different songs throughout the day. Important to note, predominantly Indigenous lineup. Just noting my faves below:
King Stingray: powerful psych rock which melded different languages within songs. Some songs had Midnight Oil kind of sound.
Alice Skye: soft-vocal indie dreampop kinda sound.
Busby Marou: folky blues duo. Chill.
Electric Fields: excellent. Seen them before at Commonwealth Park in Canberra; I think I appreciate this style of music more now. Had really cinematic soundscapes that would transition into uplifting synthpop.
Eric Avery: did some backing violin to some other artists. I felt like his instrumentation blended really well with other styles. Will have to keep an eye on him.
Kardajala Kirridarra: choral group that blended Western and Indigenous styles alongside ambient soundscapes. One of my faves. Really into this style of music right now. They said play at the Melbourne Recital Centre sometimes; I think they would be really good to see there.
Mo'Ju: had at times a bit of an aggressive hip hop sound. Massive popstar energy.
26/11/22 Courtney Barnett; Nick Cave/Warren Ellis. Hanging Rock. The cold and bitter rain in many ways made this performance a complete experience
22/11/22 MIUC: Cher/Shoshana Rosenberg/Nik Kennedy; Uboa; Electric Self. Bar Open.
Eren described Cher et al as like being on a spaceship with every warning alarm sounding. Balls to the wall noise. So over the top, I chuckled a bit but the artists looked like they were laughing and having fun too.
Uboa had really well contrasted ambient/arabic-esque singing with stuttery noise sections. Storytelling in a way.
electric self. Holy fuck. More than just music, it was performance art. I have never before seen a musician sticky tape their head to the leg on an audience member before. At first, I thought one member walking around with a fish was ground breaking but then it only evolved from there.
19/2/23 Jim Dusty; S.Wells; Darby. The Old Bar.
Classic good old Canberra fun in Melbourne. Jimm Dusty is such a performer. Really has that rock star persona and stage presecnce. Music from S.Wells and Darby were both soulful
22/4/23 DayDream Festival: Majak Door; Cloud Nothings; Beach Fossils; Tropical Fuck Storm; Modest Mouse. Sydney Meyer Bowl.
Shame Slowdive couldn't make it. Good soli performances all round. Really nice to see Cloud Nothings - never thought they would ever make it to Australia. I don't know why but when Modest Mouse performed and the the band talked to the audience between songs it really hammered home some of their cowboy aesthetic that comes through in the music.
25/6/23 Carla Geneve. Northcote Social Club.
Carla is great. True Australian songwriter in every sense of the word. Really introspective music which did from time to time get me thinking deeply about my life rather than actually listening - but that's a valid artistic experience I suppose.
7/7/23 Ov Pain; Aquatico; Quivers; Congo; Electric Self. Last Chance Rock and Roll Bar. Only caught the last song by Ov Pain but seemed classic drone with soft female vocals on top. Well done - but only saw one song. Aquatico had excellent sense of time and dynamics. They knew exactly when to have a distorted note play out or when to kick things up a gear. Aquatico had a kind of twee sound to them. I really enjoyed when all the members were harmonising with vocals. Congo was great entertainment. Interacting with the audience. Lots of leather. Electric Self - what an experience. It's definitely more performance art than it is music. I have this feeling that the members can play really well - just choose not to. This gigs special performance featured a small plastic zebra and cymbals being thrown onto the floor in front of the audience.
13/7/23 Eyeroll; Orb. Shotkickers.
Eyeroll worked really hard to get some crowd interaction going - too many in the audience still had beers in hand to do much other than sway side to side: myself included. I thought sometimes the feedback noises from their gear sounded really good.
Otherwise, the main show was well and truly Orb. This was my fourth time seeing them play - at Gizzfest; The Basement (in Canberra); and the Forum (in Melbourne). Once again, they really worked magic. The venue really suited as heavy riffs and instrumentation felt full-force.
17/7/23 Headphone Jones; The Seven Ups. Shotkickers.
Watching Headphone Jones, I could just tell that the band had great musical chemistry. It looked they were up there having so much fun.
The Seven Ups were really really impressive. They took the funk-adjacent sound that Headphones Jones had been and added a touch of psychedelic rock, with tastefully distorted guitar adding a real point of distinction.
20/7/23 Automatic; Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Margaret Court Arena.
Each member of Automatic really cut a distinct portion of their sonic landscape. There was such clear distinction between each of the instruments. They grooved hard. Felt myself slipping in an out of songs - lost in the music. I wonder if playing in an arena venue helped.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs really went for incorporating this massive visual prescence into their performance. At one point they had people throw these massive inflatable eyesballs into the crowd to be tossed around - a shame they took them away after only one song though. I reckon more concerts need inflatable stuff. They finished with a sequence of their more energetic tracks which helped bring a good close to the show.
24/7/23 Aplegate; The Seven Ups. Shotkickers.
I don't know if this is underselling the aplegate, but they can certainly be described as Pink Floyd'esque. Really good instrument contrast with quieter piano and vocal driven parts being contrasted by extended psych jam sections.
Having seen the Seven Ups two weeks in a row, I kinda knew what to expect in a way. But it only helped me appreciate the performance more - and this time, I could actually see all the members from where I was standing. Excellent.
25/8/23 Aquatico; Lowtide; Magic Dirt. Corner Hotel.
I originally bought a ticket to this gig solely on the basis that I wanted to see Lowtide play because they don't play very often and they were on my list of must see bands. The gig was sold out and I imagine there were a few Magic Dirt fans who missed out - meanwhile I had never heard of Magic Dirt before.
Aquatico were excellent. Good dynamics and seperation between intruments. Powerful vocals. I didn't recognise the name on the bill - but the moment I heard them play I immediately knew that I had seen them play before. Gonna have to keep a closer following on them.
Lowtide with this gig have cemented in my mind that they are in my opinion one of the best contemporary bands. Writing this review the day after - I now have their song Alibi stuck in my head all day. Just excellent everything - and basically whilst they were performing it felt like time itself had ceased to exist.
Magic Dirt were great - I liked that they had a mix of style from pub-rock-eque songs to slower, almost slowcore songs - some of which reminded me of 90s Melbourne band Sandpit. They played for a bit too long though - almost two hours, which is the musical equivalent of eating too much food at a restuarant and then kinda regretting eating out at all. I really liked that at one point, they hung guitars from the ceiling whilst feedback was ringing around - made for quite a potent visual symbol. Great gig, and it felt like I was sitting in on some kind of intimate ritual between friends as the band would talk about people from years past who had helped them get where they were - as after all, nobodies success occurs in isolation.
Lowtide in action.One of Magic Dirt's guitars hanging from a cable near the ceiling.
29/8/23 Jaw Surgery & April Guest; Pondan Idaman & Big Leng; Will Guthrie; Karina Utomo, Rama Parwata & (unknown performer). Make It Up Club; Liquid Architecture. Bar Open.
Hard noise type stuff by Jaw Surgery & April Guest isn't quite my thing. Jaw Surgery had some kind of electro-acoustic device with metal chains attached but it was barely audible in the mix over the top of the effects applied and other instrumentation. I think a rhythmic dynamic would have made it more enjoyable for me. However, a very visceral performance with great energy. Pondan Idaman & Big Leng performed a really hard hitting bassline with rapping over the top. Intense and harrowing lyrics about racial experiences and trauma.
Will Guthrie was giving a masterclass on drumming. He even closed his eyes through much of it.
The final performers of the night really brough together I feel a bunch of different elements from each of the other performers and incorporated extra sensory elements through use of incense and a ceremonial blade. Before their performance there was acknowledgement to country made in both English and Bahasa. Excellent layered vocals at times bringing in harshness and jazz drumming too. Fabulous.
30/8/23 MxMars & Max Lawrence; NC Ives. Signals Ambient. Kent St.
Just want to say that the venue and atmosphere was perfectly suited to an ambient music performance. Small and cozy venue. Friendly crowd. I even spied a few faces that I had seen the night before at MIUC.
MxMars and Max Lawrence performed beautifully. Accordion is an instrument I hadn't thought about being used in ambient music but it was suited perfectly.
NC Ives rounded out the night using a mixture of cassette tapes and other instrumentation - paired with a video on a projector screen. Really took us on a journey across so many different moods and sonic landscapes.
1/9/23 Thomasin. Nevermind Bar.
I didn't catch the first band of this set. Thomasin really brough an energy and storytelling. Effective rhythm in their three piece. I even got a zine handed to me at the end by the singer. I think more bands should do such a thing.
5/9/23 Helen Svoboda & Merina Dias Jayasinha; Domenico de Clario, Ayako Fujii, Raka Supriatna, & Tony Yap; Domenico de Clario. Make It Up Club. Bar Open.
Helen Svoboda and Merina Dias Jayasinha combined beautifully with ethereal vocals and simple synth work.
The middle act incorporated dance as an element. Tony Yap exhibiting an extreme degree of body control and gave a performance which brought a friend of mine to tears.
Domenico de Clario gave a pretty sprited performance with pretty clear story telling elements to the vocals.
14/9/23 Phoebe Greaves - as curator. Crockpot. Unassigned Gallery.
Not really a gig as such, but I thought I would include it here. Basically a poetry night - not something I've been to before, but it has left quite the impression on me. Such a warm atmosphere. I still don't really know what the different between a good poem and a bad poem but maybe it doesn't matter. I thought attending this even would be interesting for my music practice as songwriting, and lyrics, are the areas of practice that I struggle with most. There is something so powerful about seeing someone up there speaking without any music to help carry them. Naked.
27/9/23 Justin Ashworth; Dominic Altmore. Signals Ambient. Kent St.
Justin did a phenomenal job - 4 point surround sound and a cloud like generative composition. Again - Signals is proving to be an excellent event for just relaxing and feeling comfortable whilst sound washes around the room. Dominic brought a slightly different sensibility with the incorporation of keyboard.
30/9/23 Kheer; Oh Starving; Reserve Skank of Australia. Smith's Alternative.
Kheer was jazzy - with a minimalistic sensibility. I really enjoyed Oh Starving. Excellent indie rock sound and a good sense of humour, but perhaps sometimes they went for the obvious comedic route when they are truly on the cusp of greatness. RSoA are pretty ambitious with over ten members crammed onto the Smith's stage. Fun.
8/10/23 Hana Stretton; Mount Eerie. Max Watt's
Hana Stretton had this magical aura to her during the performance. The entire crowd shushed to a barely audible whisper the moment Hana started playing. Ethereal guitar driven folk performance.
Mount Eerie - what can I say. Somehow I kept bumping into people I knew - must be something about mid-twenties indie fans. Phil playing on this own up there with just an electric guitar but somehow managed to coax so many different playing styles out of it. One of those performances where I am standing there lettin the music wash over me and I just start to think about life. Excellent.
20/10/23 Minyerra; Nina Buchanan. Liquid Architecture. Tempo Rubato.
I gotta say the acknowledgement of country that Liquid Architecture do before a gig they've organised has gotta be one of the better acknowledgements. It says something like they recognise the ongoing improvisational art of Indigenous people. It also mentions that collaboration through art with Indigenous peoples is a way to resit colonisation. It's good and relevant I feel.
Minyerra should start a wellness retreat. Unreal. Actual magic. The moment he started playing it was like an actual spell had been cast over me and I could not help but close my eyes and nearly well fell asleep and looking across the audience when I had the strenght to open my eyes, I saw many other people asleep or struggling to stay awake. Tasteful combination of sampled Indigenous instrumentation, electric guitar, electronic instruments and vocals both spoken word and sung. Brilliant.
Nina was doing something very close to dark club techno, but slightly off-kilter and with an audience that was almost entirely seated. Drums that weren't drums is all I can say.
21/10/23 Various artists. The Space Beyond the Screen. Startlings Spatial Sound. ACMI.
I thought it would be more visually inclined and a bit more performance based, but still one hell of an experience. Seated in a theatre - mostly in darkness listening to ambient music with the odd compositon paired with a visual experience or video - which provided a contrast when the screen did light up as now suddenly I had to use two parts of my brain at once.
3/11/23 Thomasin. Nevermind Bar.
Once again when seeing Thomasin play I missed the opening act. All good though cause Thomasin more than made up for the journey. The three piece certainly knew how to sonically fill a room on an unseasonably cool night in Hawthorn. Noisy folk rock that I think could really go somewhere with a slick record made. Feels like I'm on the groundfloor of something big.
11/11/2023 Woollen Kits; Lower Plenty. Gem Bar.
I love a daytime gig. Seriously nothing better than music starting at 4pm with the sun still up. Woollen Kits had a real retro garage rock kinda vibe. Stripped back vintage sound with their 3 members. I couldn't work out if they were playing covers or their originals just had a kind of familiar sound.
Lower Plenty were fantastic. I hadn't realised that Al Monty was a member of this band too - so it kind of threw me for a bit of a nostalgia trip as I now realise that the Melbourne early 2010s post-punk scene that I used to read about in zines, as a teen living in Canberra, was now a scene that was still impactful, but not nearly as current as it once was. Great gig. I thought they had a good variance in dynamics.
16/11/2023 Dust; Interpol; Bloc Party. Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
Admittedly, I didn't gel with every song that Dust did, but I'm pretty sure some tracks had a saxophone and those that did really shone. Interpol were fabulous - I don't think Paul Banks quite hit every note perfectly but his voice was unmistakably his own and to hear it live was really special. I kinda just wish their set was playing the entirety of Turn on the Bright Lights in full, but they had a great mix of new and old. Bloc Party were solid - are solid. Not much else to say.
26/11/2023 Ruel; Latto; Peach PRC; Lastlings; Ocean Alley; [various other artists]. Spilt Milk Canberra. Exhibition Park.
This is one of those day festivals where obviously you're never gonna see everything - so it's good to embrace the thing as your own curated sub-set experience, complete with all those social interactions that make a festival, a festival. I admit, going into this I only recognised about 5 artists names on the lineup, but as I soon found out, I had heard the songs of a lot more before - probably in ads, radio, and short format video like reels/tik-toks.
Ruel and Latto were good to start off with - danceable but the hot sun kinda reduced my ability to move to not much more than a side-to-side shuffle.
Didn't stay long for Peach PRC - liked the heavy bits of her songs, but they were a bit disjointed I thought when the music would calm down for more active singing to come in and then it losts its danceability for me.
Holy hell - Lastlings were quite the discovery. Wasn't familiar with them previoulsy and so was a random set that I joined the start of and was immediately impressed. It had everything I was looking for. I got dancing and I also could enjoy melodies without needing to stop my body. They sounded like a more ravey City Calm Down - a band I recall seeing at an edition of Laneway festival in Sydney some years ago.
Someone at a pre-drinks had been shit-talking Ocean Alley as a band with no substance, just a triple J friendly visual aesthetic. But I thoroughly enjoyed their set. It was downright funky. Live, the bass and guitar just had me grooving. Also, as an aside, local pop-singer Lucy Sugerman was dancing near me at one point and it was a bit of a double-take moment as I was like "I'm dancing next to someone famous".
29/11/2023 Zoltan Fesco & Anna Morley; Daniel O'Toole. Signals Ambient. Kent St Bar.
Zoltan and Anna combined really well. The vibraphones that Anna played brought a good balance to the more purely electronic sounds coming from the table/stand in front of Zoltan. Daniel had a device he'd created that sent signal impulses based on an object hitting a surface. He used a table tennis ball to trigger it. I feel like it definitely did add a nice randomness and perfomative aspect to things. Will be interesting to see if this is an instrument that Dan continues to refine it and the associated process.
