Frightened Rabbit, Gang of Youths @ The Hi-Fi Bar, Melbourne (05/02/2014)
Kicking off the night were the Sydney so-called “emotional-ass concept rock” band Gang of Youths brought to the stage a set filled with soft rock songs that was perfect for nice background music as the venue filled up. Not being able to understand what they were singing was a hindrance to their performance which was unfortunate. The song they left us with was packed with a subtle build up, a drum beat that got you grooving, a beautiful voice and lyrics, which all together got me hearing sounds similar to The Black Keys and The Rubens. That song gave more confidence in this suddenly big band and made up for the set.
I’d never been to a gig where I’ve sat on the balcony and just watched the night commence. It was really interesting to see when the crowd started bopping and everyone screamed and clapped and everything else you do at gigs. And, well, more or less all of that happened in the first song.
The band from Glasgow came on stage with their thick Scottish accents, five guitars, two keyboards, a drum kit, and other such instruments. It was a full stage with the six of them up there to the point where I couldn’t actually see what the drummer looked like. With that amount of people and instruments you’d think it’d be a lot of messy noise but that wasn’t the case at all. Their sound wasn’t cluttered but rather clean with Scott Hutchinson’s vocals clear and the melodies, harmonies and everything in between coming together as a rather impressive gig. And the crowd agreed with me.
You know when you’re at a gig and everyone starts singing along and the singer moves away from the microphone and has that proud smile on that makes you a bit emotional? That happened on many occasions last night. Seeing that from the balcony though was a different experience in itself. It’s really moving when you see a band having the time of their lives on stage and the crowd enjoying themselves that much more. It makes a concert that much better.
Introducing one of their sadder songs Scott says “this song is about killing yourself” and the crowd screamed and applauded. We would clapped at just about anything.
Half way through Scott played a few solo acoustic tracks. He said “okay, you guys choose one, I choose one and then you guys choose another one”. You can imagine what happened next. The whole room erupted in people yelling song names, though you couldn’t actually decipher what anyone said. Scott stood their laughing and trying to hear something but he had just as much trouble.
During these three songs the atmosphere of the gig completely changed. It went from this full sound that everyone was grooving and tapping their foot away to complete and utter silence and awe from the whole crowd. One or two people did yell out and it lightened the mood a bit from the content of these sad songs. It was incredible though because I have been to gigs where they bring it down and play these softer songs and there has not been one comparable to last night. There was even hushing to get others to quieten down further.
After those three songs the rest of band hopped back on stage playing some of their bigger hits like ‘The Woodpile’ and ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ much to the crowd’s enjoyment.
Tyler Saliba
I’d never been to a gig where I’ve sat on the balcony and just watched the night commence. It was really interesting to see when the crowd started bopping and everyone screamed and clapped and everything else you do at gigs. And, well, more or less all of that happened in the first song.
The band from Glasgow came on stage with their thick Scottish accents, five guitars, two keyboards, a drum kit, and other such instruments. It was a full stage with the six of them up there to the point where I couldn’t actually see what the drummer looked like. With that amount of people and instruments you’d think it’d be a lot of messy noise but that wasn’t the case at all. Their sound wasn’t cluttered but rather clean with Scott Hutchinson’s vocals clear and the melodies, harmonies and everything in between coming together as a rather impressive gig. And the crowd agreed with me.
You know when you’re at a gig and everyone starts singing along and the singer moves away from the microphone and has that proud smile on that makes you a bit emotional? That happened on many occasions last night. Seeing that from the balcony though was a different experience in itself. It’s really moving when you see a band having the time of their lives on stage and the crowd enjoying themselves that much more. It makes a concert that much better.
Introducing one of their sadder songs Scott says “this song is about killing yourself” and the crowd screamed and applauded. We would clapped at just about anything.
Half way through Scott played a few solo acoustic tracks. He said “okay, you guys choose one, I choose one and then you guys choose another one”. You can imagine what happened next. The whole room erupted in people yelling song names, though you couldn’t actually decipher what anyone said. Scott stood their laughing and trying to hear something but he had just as much trouble.
During these three songs the atmosphere of the gig completely changed. It went from this full sound that everyone was grooving and tapping their foot away to complete and utter silence and awe from the whole crowd. One or two people did yell out and it lightened the mood a bit from the content of these sad songs. It was incredible though because I have been to gigs where they bring it down and play these softer songs and there has not been one comparable to last night. There was even hushing to get others to quieten down further.
After those three songs the rest of band hopped back on stage playing some of their bigger hits like ‘The Woodpile’ and ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ much to the crowd’s enjoyment.
Tyler Saliba