From one chilly winter night hour I trundled into another of an altogether warmer kind at the Vic on the Park tonight.

The project of multi-instrumentalist frontman Josh Pyke, Night Hour do a nice line in solid, well-crafted pop, with their catchy current single Silver finding some frequent rotation on JJJ. Having recently seen these guys for the first time, I was eagerly anticipating my sophomore experience with them and their little pop potato-gems. A great band with a lot of finesse and a sophisticated feel for song-craft, they can certainly make use of their talent live, however Night Hour on this occasion were kinda like getting drunk in a park with some close friends – fun but not hugely memorable.

A divine gift from across the plains, Fourth Floor Collapse have received the kind of press that’s hard to credit. Having been impressed by their efforts on plastic thus far (albums Half Deserted Streets and From The Cold) I was interested to see the live translation of their deliciously haunting yet muscularly melodic odes. Expecting a dark, melancholic sound
awash with despair and loneliness (refer album titles), I was surprised to find a band full of energy and promise, almost bounding off stage with a kind of joyful exuberance. Pounding out tracks like the superb Stories Unglued, they virtually tore apart the stage in sonic waves of a perverse kind of glee. A band that knows what they’re doing, and shows it to full effect live, FFC have an undeniable stage presence with a kind of earnestness that powers off the stage almost as far as singer Michael Miller’s huge voice.  Theirs is an oceanic sound that tonight wowed the crowd into sustained moments of glory – a majestic yet lyrical feel which
rolled over the crowd in peaks and crests. The clever weft and weave of dual guitars, keys and rhythm create a kind of night-sky tapestry against which pinpoints of light shine through, sonic highlights which brighten a complex sound.

Theirs is a world painted of dark and light shades, but lived with a healthy dose of optimism. Fourth Floor err on the nutritious side of the pop smorgasbord – a home-made meal, rather than the kind of 7-11 feast you’d indulge in to abate the munchies. There’s a lot of goodness here which belies the darker undertones of the music – more of a herbal tea than any excessive pharmacopeia, but elastic, mature and memorable tunes nonetheless.

To top off a night of the finest Antipodean pop, who else would play but the consistently wonderful Big Heavy Stuff. After witnessing the sheer finesse of their stately, memorable shows several months ago, celebrating the release of what is surely their finest album to date – Dear Friends & Enemies – I was itching to repeat the experience. A band whose career has
progressed the old-fashioned way – through ongoing attempts at perfecting their song-writing craftsmanship and touring their asses off, their long-standing credibility points to the underlying strength of virtually every song they’ve ever written. From the heart-singeing power of Devil’s Tongue to the Ahab-in-love divinity of album single Mutiny – tonight, yet again, they did not fail to deliver. Featuring the ultra-talented Sophie Glasson of the sublime Starboard on cello (check them out!) for some tracks, songs such as Some Crazy Someone were dizzying highlights. An exercise in dualities, the combination of warm guitars and Greg Atkinson’s harshly honesty vocals left every audience member feeling simultaneously beloved and abandoned at the same time – a vision of amour wrought from torn photographs.

It’s this kind of in-your-face honesty that the Heavies do best, and performing it live ensures that every one of us feels the shame of the hypocrisies of the heart that form the essence of their songs … the voice in your head that tells you what you should, but won’t, do. Alternately
bracing and embracing, every one of the tracks tonight had the audience swaying as if hypnotised, or bopping (yes, bopping!) to keyboard-aided tracks such as One Day in Your Life.
Tonight, genuine, hug-your-mates kind of fun was to be had. Drinks were held aloft, sly smiles were exchanged across the room – this could have been your primary-school dance. It is the kind of feeling evoked by a well-heeled band at the top of their game, playing to an audience who expects that extra bit of quality – an aged merlot instead of Passionpop. There was a palpable feeling of warmth in the air – a giddy high that ensured the Heavies encored undeterred, and to many a cheer, even after the lights went on.  There were no Enemies here tonight, just Dear Friends.