Daughters Of The Rich

It's always hard being the opening band. People are still slowly filtering into the venue, most punters won't even show up until you're finished and those who are there generally aren't paying you much attention. It takes an energetic band with a unique sound and the capacity to work a crowd to really capture the audience, and unfortunately, openers Daughters Of The Rich had none of these things. The band is a hard-edged side project of Cameron Baines and Shane Wakker of Bodyjar, but having now seen them live, I would suggest they stick to what they know.

Though not necessarily bad, I found them to be unremarkable and their songs easily forgettable. One attempt to play back-to-back by guitarist and bassist looked very awkward, and apart from this, their stage presence was almost non-existent. There was some mumbled banter with friends in the audience, but nothing the band did made the people sitting near the stage jump up.

Calling All Cars

The venue had filled out a lot more by the time Melbourne-based Calling All Cars exploded onto the stage. Immediately they began turning heads with their hard and fast punk rock sound. Singer / guitarist Haydn Ing barely stood still – by final count he had jumped from the bass drum three times and made two journeys off the stage. For one of them, he put down his guitar, grabbed the mic and ventured out into the crowd. James Ing and Matt Lonergan, on drums and bass respectively, kept a powerful rhythm pumping and the first row of fans held up the cable trailing behind him while he went deep into the throngs looking for volunteers to scream with him. OzProg co-founder Brad Dixon summed up their presence best when he told me afterwards he though that "Calling All Cars really treat the audience like their own, as though everybody is there to see them."

I had listened to a lot of both their EPs in the lead up to interviewing them [read OzProg's interview here], so I was extremely familiar with their songs, sound and history. I thought I knew what to expect from them live, but I was quite blown away by the energy all three put into their show. The crowd were surprisingly familiar with their final two songs, radio singles "Hey You" and "Animal", and the band were able to leave the stage having made quite a few more fans.

Birds Of Tokyo

The Hi-Fi Bar staff know how to fill their venue, and the sold-out crowd were tightly packed by the time the headlining band took the stage. Tenacious D's "Classico" blasted over the speakers got everybody ready to rock before they exploded into the first three tracks from their new album, "Uno", single "Broken Bones" and "Wild Eyed Boy". The setlist covered a majority of their songs from both their debut album Day One, and this year's Universes, popular new songs like "An Ode To Death" mixed in with old favourites "Wayside" and "Desperate" kept all manner of fans happy.

I've always been a fan of the sound system at The Hi-Fi Bar, this show gave me no reason to think otherwise. Excellent mixing meant all parts were easily discernible, the drums pounding and frontman Ian Kenny's voice ringing clear. The only complaint I have is that Kenny's acoustic guitar was a bit lost the few times he used it, but it really is a minor gripe. The best songs were the ones for which he had his hands free to clap and twirl – I've never seen and hard rocker get away with twirling before, especially not while wearing a vest and performing in front of a crowd wearing not a few Opeth, Atheist and Celtic Frost shirts, but he absolutely did. Who knows, maybe it will catch on and we'll see Psycroptic spinning on the same stage later in the year.

The lighting deserves special comment – though blinding at times, I absolutely loved the effect and power of the vertical blue lights that were set up behind the band. I've seen others employ them to similar effect, but the small stage and intimate atmosphere of The Hi-Fi Bar set them apart.

Their tour is wrapping up in Tasmania and Adelaide this week, but they'll be back for the Pyramid Rock Festival in Victoria over New Years, and at Southbound in Western Australia a few days later – I highly recommend anybody with the opportunity to see this J Award nominated band do so, and do it soon!