I did manage to spend a lot of time putting a dent in the backlog of albums to listen to, in order to do the compulsory-music-bloggers-top-#-albums-of-
Almost a year to the day (actually a year + 1 day) from their last show in Brisbane, Future of the Left showed up to melt our eardrums away. Although with a new and expanded lineup and a handful of new songs, they still managed to blow me away. An added bonus this year was them playing multiple McLusky songs. I was too late into McLusky to ever see them, so this made me quite the happy fan boy. I would do a review for you, but my new mate did an even better one on his blog. Read it here.
A few days later I found myself standing in the drenching rain for not one, but two days of music at the Sunset Sounds festival. I suffered through it on the first day though, because I was about to see two bands on my “must-see” list: Interpol and Public Enemy. Public Enemy was sublime. I’m sure decades ago when they were actually fighting the power, they never thought they’d be standing in a field in the rain playing to a crowd of white kids in Australia; but they didn’t show it. They just played an excellent set, including an AC/DC song and having a collaboration with Australia’s finest beat-boxer Joel Turner (*shudder* at the memories of his Anthony Mundine collaboration). And for those of you wondering, no, Flava Flav’s neck-clock does not show the correct time.
Over the years my love affair with Interpol has waned since first hearing Turn on the Bright Lights (one of my favourite albums ever). However, their new album this year has been an excellent surprise so I was stoked to finally get to see them. They were probably the only reason I was heading to Sunset Sounds. I was a little disappointed with their appearance when they came on stage, because in my mind’s eye I had always seen them as a brooding band in all black with long hair. Instead we got a lead singer in plaid, with a mullet/rat tail thing looking like a bit of a bogan. Despite that they were excellent. They played a mix of new and old stuff; I swooned hard at Say Hello to the Angels and even sang along to some of the new songs like Barricade. But unfortunately they left with at least 5 minutes into their set and didn’t even bother with an encore. I was at least expecting to see them close out with PDA. Despite that slight disappointment and shortened set, they were still everything I imagined. Charlotte, who was standing next to me, said I just stood there in a musical trance for most of it.
I also want to make special mention of Sleigh Bells. I went in early to see this new electro/must-see band. Their debut album is alright and the guitarist was in one of my favourite hardcore bands of all time and responsible for some of my favourite hardcore riffs. However, despite him opening with a bit of Slayer’s Reign in Blood, the Sleigh Bells’ set was not enjoyable. Derek the guitarist only played simple riffs, or not even at all, leaving all the music up to a computer somewhere off stage. The vocalist appeared to be lip-synching most of the songs and when she was singing or screaming or making noises it wasn’t that good. A big disappointment for me.
Day two I almost wrote off, as the weather was much fouler and the lineup barely piqued my interest. So after staying warm in the pub with some beer and hot chips I eventually made my way over to what was a cesspool of mud. But I’m glad I did because I was blown away by a band I had written off as a one album wonder: Klaxons. Their excellent live set of electro-dance-punk even had me and Jacob up dancing and planning to form a band of similar style.
So 2011 has started off pretty well, let’s hope it can sustain it. Looking at the gigs calendar (on the right of the web page there-->) it definitely looks like it will be.
