Walking into a sparse East Brunswick room to be greeted by a trio playing fairly uncomplicated songs wasn’t too bad in a way. Velcro provided a simple set of songs which set a semi-suburban scene. Maybe the sun should have been streaming in, as we enjoyed these three minute pop songs. They were kind of sweet despite some odd lyrical content, like a cousin’s racist rant on Facebook. Inspiration comes from all places.
The solo bedroom swooner (and I say ‘swooner’ in a liberal sense) Joey Telafone paced up and down the stage for twenty minutes singing to a backing track. All in that time taking his shirt off and sweating a pool on the floor. I didn’t know what to make of his semi-singing/ranting style. I could only watch him and think of a younger version of Spod. This in many respects is unfair, because Joey’s tunes were set to a much more moderate tempo and had a little more soul to them. With a little more finesse and banter that didn’t resemble a mumbling Swedish Chef, he would be entertaining.
Dick Diver, much like Velcro before them, powered through their short sharp songs. Combined with the frenetic changes of instruments nearly after every song, it felt like a windmill of a performance. The four members meld together well with various unique vocal attributes. Beguiling hooks and lines matched well together and the new songs had some gruff behind them as well, which indicates an interesting rougher direction.
I can’t say much else except that the night turned very weird when Geoffrey O’Connor performed. With a school hall disco light machine, big 80’s drum machine beats and synthesiser sounds that would be more familiar in porn films, it’d be somewhat probable that the whole audience smoked a cone by mistake and this was the hallucinogenic dream.
After a while into the set, it felt like some sort of failed RSL night with musicians playing with great confidence on stage, but ultimately coming off as awkward. ‘Whatever’ and ‘So Sorry’ were songs that expressed this the most. I don’t know if this is the kind of music Geoffrey wants to make from now on compared to his Sly Hats or Crayon Fields days, and I suppose it could be somewhat a plausible type of performance if seen in a weird artistic way. But sometimes that’s the best thing for art, really.
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