Sunday, May 9, 2010

Groovin the Moo - Canberra

Some things worth noting:

British India owned the day and are "the next big thing".
Silverchair played new songs and these two songs were dull.
The Slew played, by far, the most original and exciting set of the day to about 200 people.

IN DETAIL

With their third album release last week, the Melbourne quartet British India, have now reached the place their first songs promised. The crowd already knew the words to songs from Avalanche and the likes of Run the Red Light were greeted as some sort of coming of age anthems. This is the shape of Australian rock in 2010.
The British India set was in sharp contrast to that offered from Grinspoon. The meat and potatoes radio rock really has done its dash. The band looked tired and uninspired while frontman Phil Jamieson delivered very little of what he is capable in terms of hedonistic rock man showmanship.

Further on the whole thing of Aus rock. Let's go to the top and Silverchair. An hour in The Capital with the first band I ever saw was full of promise and it delivered early with the trio/quartet opening with Emotion Sickness. And from there it went downhill.
Songs from the very "of the moment" Dissociatives album are now appearing in the Silverchair set list. The liaison between Daniel Johns and Paul Mac was poorly thought out in the first place and now it smells more like Johns can't recognise his work from his doodling. The two new songs (16 and Machina) were boring. They lacked pop hooks and sounded like Bowie fighting Prince in a bowling alley -uninspiring crap.

If you were looking for inspiration it was, as usual with festivals, far from the guitars. Up the hill DJ Kid Koala had assembled his mates, known as The Slew, to deliver on all the word of (frothing at the) mouth by a few in the know. If you don't already know it's the rhythm section once know as two thirds of Wolfmother alongside Dynomite (sic) D and Kid Koala. As Koala said:

"We are from the future, you will understand us in 10 years."

It was electronic, throbbing and so, so heavy. No rapping, just guitars, drums and live beats that welded together in a completely organic but utterly terrifying melange.

The Slew win.

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