I was expecting a night of surprises and nuttiness with this night of some odd sounds at The Tote (well, when isn’t there nuttiness at The Tote?), and I got more of the latter than the former. However those surprises and nuttiness at the end of the night were not something to take really in a good way. It was like each band were given a memo to theme their set around the word “weird”.
I have heard everything from boring and stupid to amazingly creative about Bum Creek’s live performances in the past. This was my first time seeing them after hearing about their shows for such a long time, and well, I have to kind of sit in the middle. The 25 minutes of this act consisted of the drummer rubbing cowbells on his nipples to a beer glass smashed against a keyboard. The band’s improvisation and general dicking about were taken in good humour, which I suppose you should’ve expected from what I had heard.
I then was expecting the sweet pop of Geoffrey O’Conner up next. Considering he was part of a few acts (Crayon Fields, Sly Hats) that delighted in the soft warm songwriting which required quiet reflection, I was expecting a solo guy with his guitar telling stories through song. What we got instead was a guy with a crate and a leopard print pillow singing songs that sounded like they belonged in a 80’s male version of Bananarama. Only that the songs were slowed to half the speed to what those Bananarama songs were. I was flummoxed by this weird version of Geoffrey’s take on chillwave and couldn’t take my attention his fumbling vocals and constant fidgeting with the stage and the crate.
A semi-stunned reviewer was certainly frazzled a little by what was going on so far in the night, and Rat Vs Possum brought me back to earth a little bit. I didn’t recognise a lot of the songs they played (although, for all I know they could have been playing re-interpretations their self titled EP), but they took on the task of being tonight’s party band, playing energetic, upbeat and generally fun tunes which the audience were really getting into. There was dancing on stage too and some difficult melodic lines that were sung and yelped with some enthusiasm. Rat Vs Possum were probably the band of the night which pulled me from a weird funk.
That weird funk came back with Pets With Pets though. Playing in near complete darkness, we saw guitars being played with spinning toys that glowed in the dark, and singing which was kind of akin to a wild banshee screaming. The fuzz that was being generated from the stage was sounding quite enormous as well, and in a way was epic. The band could really do with maybe performing their songs as instrumentals, because, while the talent and playing is there to generate some grandiose tunes, as soon as I heard vocals, I winced. Regardless, it was good to throw myself into something unexpected and unusual, and that’s a part of what discovering music is all about.
Image: astorynevertold.com
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