Posts under ‘Review’

As twilight crept over the manicured lawns of the Melbourne Zoo, the diverse crowd assembled to watch Chicagoan rapper Lupe Fiasco began to get restless. Gates had opened at 5.30, on a beautiful late-summer Friday afternoon.
Lupe (real name Wasalu Muhammad Jaco) was supported in his Sound Safari concert by local hip hop and soul artists [...]

When a band walk on stage at Queenscliff Music Festival and they’re dressed as a chicken, banana, shaman, and a carrot respectively, you hardly expect anything but comedy. And at an initial glance this band is hilarious, however they also happen to be some of the most talented and unique musicians around Melbourne. The music [...]

Arriving at the Meredith Music Festival, one enters an atmosphere incomparable to any other Victorian festival. The vibe is so avidly fun, the emphasis on craziness and good times in whatever way possible. There are so many special elements that make up the MMF experience, and that’s before you even get to the music – [...]

Having missed his earlier performance on the Lighthouse stage at Queenscliff music festival I made it a priority to head just up the road to the former church on the corner of Stoke and Hesse street where Melbourne’s talented Whitley would be playing a second set. Sadly the cost was one all too familiar to [...]

“If they get any better, I am definitely going to have to fire them” – Clare Bowditch
Great voices, great music, and great smiles. Aluka – a Melbourne-based, all female vocal trio – seem to have everything covered when it comes to putting on a great show.
The Indigo crew were lucky enough to catch their performance [...]

The Veils cemented their place as a magnificent yet criminally underrated band, with an emotionally loaded, musically complex and captivating performance on the final afternoon of the Queenscliff Music Festival. Playing on the main stage, the band began their set with the slow buildup and eventual crashing climax of “Not Yet” from their 2006 abum [...]

Perth band Little Birdy took to the stage at Queenscliff on Saturday night for an hour-long set from 8.30, and before long the marquee was packed to the brim. Fans were gathered in eager anticipation of hearing live renditions of tracks off the band’s latest album Confetti.

As a trio of engaging, dynamic young musicians performing acoustic folk music, Tinpan Orange distinguish themselves through their professionalism, their command of their instruments, and the maturity of their music and lyrics. Comprised of brother and sister pair Jesse Lubitz (bass guitar, vocals) and Emily Lubitz (guitar, vocals, ukulele), along with violinist Alex Burkoy, the [...]

One wouldn’t expect a band that has made itself famous for a bizarre hybridisation between death metal and music genres as eclectic as jazz and folk to attract a large audience. Any doubts this reviewer had in regards to the crowd were soon diminished, however, as fans packed out the Palace on Bourke St. to hear Sweden’s Opeth do what they do best.

One would have been forgiven for questioning whether Northcote Social Club was playing host to a darkened, indoor picnic rather than a Skipping Girl Vinegar gig; as the vast majority of the crowd were sprawled comfortably out across the floor on blankets rather than adopting the usual vertical position. Despite being slightly phased by the [...]

One of Ian Cooper’s favourite pieces is a tune ’stolen’  by transcribing a live  Hungarian Gypsy band performance.  He enjoyed the irony, but the Gypsies didn’t enjoy the (backhand) compliment apparently, and he was forced to make a quick exit.  Fortunately for us, he managed to finish his transcription first.
Ian Cooper (Violin), and Simon Tedeschi [...]

“I believe it’s all a dream and the more we wake the more we dream”
Zoe Ryan
Supporting Fahrenheit 43 at Curtin Bandroom
29 Lygon St, Carlton
Thursday 22 October
Acoustic singer-songwriter Zoe Ryan impressed in her first Melbourne show, at the Curtin Bandroom last Thursday 22nd October supporting Fahrenheit 43. Zoe’s initial nerves were evident but not intrusive, and [...]

As far as local gig lineup goes, it couldn’t have got much better for someone of my taste in music.  A young thrash band, a grunge/punk band and a two piece black metal band was always going to be an epic mix, and en excellent night at the Greyhound Hotel.
Two piece black metal band Evisceration [...]

Following the fall of thrash metal in the early nineties, its subsequent rebirth, (which has born witness to countless reunions, new tours, and the hasty donning of 80s denim), has been nothing but impressive.  German thrash legends, Kreator, returned this month to Australian shores, following their 2006 tour, to support their superb new album Hordes [...]

By a thread CD Launch

It clearly was going to be a special night… as we walked in to the Jazz Lab at Bennetts Lane we were met with a circle of trumpeters occupying the middle of the room.  And not just any trumpeters, but around a third of the finest of that sub-species in Melbourne, sharing their [...]

Before the music starts, little quips bounce around between the band members on the small stage at Bennetts Lane Jazz Lab.  They clearly enjoy being there together, as they develop an obscure repartee not necessarily intended for us the audience.  Their in-jokes are oblique, quirky and musical.  This is intriguing and you find yourself trying to work them [...]

Ellington supporting Short Stack @ the Hi-Fi
5th July 2009

As we briskly walked up Swanston Street trying to find Hi-Fi bar we were greeted by an onslaught of teenage girls and the odd boy, dotted proportionately considering the circumstances: the final local show of Short Stack’s current national tour, accompanied by My Future Lies and our interview [...]

As a result of the fanfare surrounding the Priory Dolls’ EP launch, Heaven is a Dirty Place, I decided to go and see them at the John Curtin Hotel in Lygon St last Friday night.  Music aside, the Dolls were in business mode, earnestly selling both their EP and their tshirts to those willing to [...]

It’s not often that a metal fan can claim to have seen one of the founders of American death metal. These seminal bands that were up and coming during the late eighties and early nineties are now usually disbanded, horribly washed up, or a combination of the two, and as a result, it is often [...]