It was hard to ignore the grins on their faces as Alt-J emerged to thousands of adoring, screaming fans at their sold out Enmore Theatre gig tonight. Launching right into “Hunger of the Pine” off their new album This Is All Yours, the audience was singing and humming along from the first notes and you could tell the band were more than humbled by the response.
When their debut record An Awesome Wave became a success, it would have had to have been a surprise to everyone involved. And seeing them several times on the road during that record, what started as enthusiasm – and a bit of a deer in the headlights sort of look about them – seemed to fade into the repetition of having only one record. The last time I saw them on that run, they looked worn out. They looked like they wanted to make new music.
But with a surprise hit record comes the pressure of that second release. “Will we disappoint fans if we do this? Are we going fades into obscurity if we do disappoint them?”. It had to have been weighing down on them as they made album number two. Though given the relative speed to which they pumped it out, one might argue that they never let that slow them down. They ran off the creative energies brewing from life on the road and indeed created a record that did not disappoint.
This week’s “toe in the water” in Australia – two relatively intimate live shows in Melbourne and Sydney – has no doubt proved to the band that they’d maintained their fans. From start to finish, the crowd was dancing, singing along and screaming out. It’s no longer a surprise response, but now it seems the band have more of an opportunity to take it in, appreciate it – and know that they’re more than just a flash in the pan. That’s got to feel good.
Expecting more of the new album than the last, it was exciting to see that the band pretty much intended to play the vast majority of both records. The older material sounds more fleshed out than ever – you can hear them even adding little pieces here and there. On the flip side, unsurprisingly, the newer material was still finding it’s feet. Songs like “Warm Foothills”, which on record is something of a vocal cut and paste job (and a highlight of the record), doesn’t quite translate live with Joe Newman’s sole vocals – but it maintained its hypnotising quailty all the same. “Nara” on the other hand, which was the second song in their encore trio (closing, naturally, with “Breezeblocks” to much crowd appreciation), was a standout of the entire night, as was “Every Other Freckle” which came earlier.
Backed by an impressive light show that kept your eyes on the quartet, all who embrace the front of the stage, they also enticed more crowd participation than I’d ever seen from the band in the past. The energy was strong from both crowd and band and Gus promised we were louder than Melbourne the night before – though we get that a lot.
What a treat this night was. A surprisingly early taste of the phenomenal new record live, with the band entering the cycle re-energized. And though it would be interesting to know how it feels without Gwil on the road, his replacement did a sound job all the same. As they dipped their toes in the water ahead of their Festival appearances over the Summer, they’ll surely be leaving reassured that Australia has retained its love for the band and hopefully they’ll still be wearing those grins when they hit the stage at Falls.
Earlier, Grace (formerly Grace Woodroofe) appeared as the opening support, being served a rather daunting task of playing a brand new set of a brand new songs in front of a massive crowd. But thanks to having years of performance behind her under her former (full) name, Grace impressed the crowd with high energy and a several standout tracks – including “Pluto”, set to be her first single and closing her set. On first listen, it’s much less haunting and minimal than some of her earlier material – her band fleshing the material out nicely and taking away a lot of the guitar focused material we had come to know – though she impresses upon us that there remains a darkness to it. Either way, I’m definitely keeping my ears open to hear the first recordings of her latest material to surface!
This Is All Yours is available now.
