Author: Vittorio E.
Photographer: Arfy Papadam
click image to view gallery [Photo: Arfy Papadam] |
The first trip to the bathroom reveals that we’re in for a longer night than we could have possibly expected. It’s a Thursday night – a school night, I stress – and the bill on the door leading to the toilet declares that there will be five bands on the night. The last Fergus Brown is to start at a quarter to midnight, and will be filmed for the forthcoming feature film, LBF.
Brian Campeau is up first, and he’s brought one quarter of his band, The Common Misconceptions, along for support. She, a certain Elana Stone, accompanies on accordion and vocals. Brian Campeau is a folk singer – or at least what he does is grounded in folk; the reality is that the music is a little spacier than all that. It’s partly the reverb and partly his inventive guitar playing style, in which the rhythm is supplemented by harmonics, trills, hammer-ons and surprisingly inventive tapping. He sings four songs, she sings two, and the crowd is entranced. |
The mosh pit at the Enmore theatre was packed out from wall to wall before the support acts – had even left the stage, and the seats quickly filled up. As soon as Kate Miller-Heidke hit the stage, the excited hubbub exploded into a minute’s solid applause. She lived up to her usual image – with freshly dyed hair and a dress made out of purple frills and silver tinsel. And, as soon as she started playing, everyone in the house knew they were in for something special. The whole crowd fell dead silent to hear her open with “Our Song”, a honest and emotional performance that Kate starts over her partner Kier Nuttal’s guitar before the rest of the band comes in.
Only having one support act seems a trifle insufficient for a band of Kreator’s standing – insulting even – but that’s what confronts us Thursday night at the Metro Theatre. Still, it looks to be a promising evening. I have never, in fact, seen such a huge line to get into the Metro before, and that’s always a good sign as it suggests that the opening band is worth giving a shit about. That honour goes to Sydney’s Mortal Sin, a band that have been kicking around for nearly as long as Kreator. They do themselves proud. Though, unfortunately, by the time we get past the line and into the venue we’ve missed half their set – and of the half we do see most of it is taken up by that marvel of the rock n’ roll genre, the thrash metal ballad.