Seekae, Ced Nada, Celebrity Sex Tape, Eldred

Column: Gig Reviews | Date Published: Tuesday, 12 June 12 | Author: Sophia McDonald | 11 months, 2 weeks ago

At Trinity Bar, Saturday June 2

On a cold and rainy Saturday night, the kind Canberra does horrendously well, Trinity Bar was host to a special show. Courtesy of PANG! the three-strong, electronic, multi-instrumentalist group came to town for the first time ever. The group had recently played a well-received show at the Sydney Opera house as part of the acclaimed Vivid festival, and local expectations for the guys’ sweet, ambient sounds were high. Trinity seemed like an appropriate intimate venue, tickets were well-priced and around 4,000 people had joined on the Facebook event page. It was set to be a good night.

Despite all this and the exciting sight of Seekae’s gear set up at the ‘stage’ in Trinity, there were a few factors that set the show off kilter. The weather probably didn’t assist the cause. More importantly, the supports were individually impressive but didn’t provide a suitable lead-up to the main act.

Eldred got things started early with some house and bass. Celebrity Sex Tape dropped a nice mix of tunes including a favourite by recent Trinity visitors Flume. A crowd started seeping inside, filling up seats and mingling on the floor. Drinks were flowing but not as fast as they could, probably due to the prices and student crowd.

Next up, Ced Nada’s confident, unique style was a pleasure to listen to and got some people moving instinctively. His set was a varied pack of genres – bass, dub step, some club tunes, a juke classic Footcrab from Addison Groove (aka Headhunter) and of course HudMo’s Cbat, which went down well with the crowd. As midnight approached the room was split in two. A crowd getting down to Ced Nada’s tunes filled up one side and especially eager Seekae fans squeezed themselves into rows at the other end of the room.

The problem presented itself here – Ced Nada’s set was fresh and heavy… maybe too much so. There was a small part of the crowd that looked like they wanted to be in Civic by now getting hammered on vodka Redbulls and what came next made them tilt their heads and say, ‘Well… this is weird’. Direct quote.

Seekae played a combination of old tunes (The Sound Of Trees Falling On People) and tracks from their new album (+DOME). These tended to have more vocals and a less-electronica more-indie flavour to them. Their sound was clever and weaved together with keyboards, electric drums, melodica and live vocal sampling. However, a few things didn’t click. The set seemed a little stilted, played track-by-track and hard to differentiate from the recorded versions – these guys would surely know how to improv in the nicest ways so why didn’t they? There wasn’t a lot of energy happening by this stage – it was a bit wet and a bit late for Seekae’s loose, dreamy vibes and the fact you couldn’t see the band behind the fourth row made it feel even less immediate. Still, things peaked for Seekae’s killer, beat-laden tracks like Void and they ended on a high note with the crowd-pleasing 3.

After Seekae, Offtapia vs Cheese jumped in with some techno and bass which kept the crowd for a while.

I wouldn’t have minded seeing Seekae supported by something lower key like experimental electronica or even a chilled indie band. That way they would have headlined as a sonic peak of sorts and their precision, subtlety and mellow romantics could have been better appreciated. Nonetheless, all the acts were good, the vibe was enthusiastic and Seekae delivered something new and thoughtful to the Canberra crowd. I hope they come again.

	Boy & Bear, The Jungle Giants, Tin Sparrow: At ANU Bar, Friday June 1 It was a cold evening in Canberra but I can guarantee the city was flooded with warm souls and blissful smiles following Boy & Bear’s performance on Friday night. The show at the ANU Bar was part of the Sydney band’s almost-sold-out-at-every-venue Remember The Mexican national tour. Walking in I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of the crowd and was definitely shocked with the turn-out. The varied audience was amazing. To be honest I was anticipating a lot of uni students, buns, bangs and red lipstick. I wasn’t wrong but the crowd was also made up of much more – including people old enough to be these kid’s parents and grandparents. It was incredible to see the array of faces and to realise that this young band’s music crosses decades and resonates so strongly with fans of all ages. The band was supported by indie darlings Tin Sparrow and The Jungle Giants. Both bands have recently earned well-deserved triple j praise and were both received surprisingly well for an opening act. They managed to pull their fair share of fans and most surely left Canberra with a few hundred more, myself included (especially because The Jungle Giants reminded me of a calmer Vampire Weekend, which was as delightful as it sounds). Boy & Bear took the stage a little while later, opening with Rabbit Song, and as expected it was lovely. It set the mood for the rest of the show, musically and more so performance-wise. As I watched them perform that first song it really struck me how unpretentious they were. Before they started playing I was waiting for a somewhat flashy entrance and the ‘HEY, WE’RE HERE!’ impact most bands try so hard to achieve. But the boys didn’t need that. It was a quiet entrance, straight into the music. Even though it was an almost seamless transition on stage, I’m sure no matter what you were doing you would have stopped and listened. I even saw a couple midway through a break-up and as the music started they stopped, reconciled and hugged it out…That’s a lie but I’m sure it could have happened. Boy & Bear have that kind of impact on people. A charming surprise came a few songs later when the band performed their cover of Crowded House’s Fall At Your Feet. Coming out of nowhere, it was enough to stop everyone in their tracks. Frontman Dave Hosking’s voice, while always luminous, really took flight during this song. It was one of those serene music moments where you could just close your eyes and be transported anywhere. The entire show carried on much the same: restrained yet powerful vocals accompanied by beautiful folk melodies, almost like a modern day Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I was in a trance for the majority of the show, completely overcome by the band’s haunting exquisiteness. A while later the crowd braved the harsh Canberra conditions, shivering not due to the crisp winter air but to the haunting, beautiful music of Boy & Bear.

	The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Raveonettes: At ANU Bar, Friday May 18 It's always a relief to round the corner of the ANU Bar on a show night and see punters spilling out across the decking. Of course it is a Friday night so there really is no excuse, and thankfully Canberra has done itself proud for The Brian Jonestown Massacre's first visit. We aren't too long inside before, at the very civil hour of a-quarter-to-nine, Danish duo The Raveonettes emerge, flanked by a touring drummer. With their flashy light show, the 'nettes leave their US tour-mates in their wake in the performance stakes. Sune Rose Wagner's searing guitar work is sharper than his bandmate Sharin Foo's fringe: fuzzed out; treble-heavy; loud enough to dislodge fillings; equal parts Mary Chain's William Reid and The Cramps' Poison Ivy. While the pair still share vocal duties, Foo takes the lead on most of the new songs and makes a commanding frontwoman. As the crew prepares for The Brian Jonestown Massacre's entrance, the side stage area looks like a Vox showroom from the '60s with all kinds of bizarrely-shaped six and 12-string artefacts sitting about on racks. When the group do arrive, they file onstage and get straight down to it with Stairway To The Best Party In The Universe from their latest LP, Aufheben. From there the band go about their business with minimal fuss. Any rubberneckers who've come along in hope of something kicking off will have left disappointed. As anyone with a passing interest in the band would know, their infamously unwieldy days are long gone and The Brian Jonestown Massacre are now a reliable live proposition, more likely to break the venue curfew with a marathon set than any bystanding sitars. Granted, a piece about a band who troupe onstage, stand fairly still and flawlessly run through a wide-ranging selection of their best songs doesn't exactly make for the most gripping reading, but on the ground the band never sound any less than riveting. Tonight, ordinarily chatty frontman Anton Newcombe seems content to let his songs do the talking, though early on in the piece he does pause to wryly remark, “Did they just throw Tony Abbott out?” when a more 'refreshed' member of the audience is ejected. Later on he mumbles a brief, somewhat indecipherable diatribe into the microphone which ties in both the Kardashians and the electoral process. As with the banter, the jamming is kept to a minimum and, by the night's end, the band have powered through 21 songs. With founding member and contributing songwriter Matt Hollywood and magnetic tambourine player Joel Gion both back in the fold, this eight-man, four – on one song five – guitarist incarnation could well prove to be the band's definitive line-up. Certainly, rendered through that wall of guitars, tonight's versions of early tunes like That Girl Suicide and Vacuum Boots sound streets ahead of their studio counterparts. The band do allow themselves to stretch out on closing number Straight Up And Down, jamming out the track until it slowly morphs into a hybrid of Sympathy For The Devil and Hey Jude. The members depart the stage one by one, leaving Newcombe behind on the keyboards, conjuring up an unholy noise coda to the near-two-hour set. For a brief moment it appears an encore is on the cards but neither the audience nor Newcombe seems to commit. Perhaps he knows, like we do, that it'd be a tough ask to top what had gone before.