Co-headline tours are a brilliant idea because, really, who wants to turn down two main attractions for the price of one? Two of Sydney’s finest outfits going around, funk/pop rockers The Cops and new wave/indie rockers Expatriate set out on such a tour, the Strange Creatures Tour, where the two acts swapped the headline position each night. On their second last night the pair of bands played to a rowdy crowd at Moorooduc’s Peninsula Lounge.
Young Lovers began the night with their blend of synth pop and indie rock. The (fittingly) young Melbourne five piece seemed to draw the attention of most early comers, probably because most were avoiding the hideously overpriced bar. A solid intro to the night ensued.
Security must have noticed the growing mob of bogans getting somewhat “wild” whilst awaiting Expatriate, because the house music stopped, the lights went down and the band’s intro blared out, yet no band hit the stage. Instead, the house music resumed and minutes later security marched out to install a barrier; something which could have been done way earlier in the night.
Expatriate appeared eventually after a second introduction and went hard at it. Unfortunately, it seemed the bands sound was too loud all round and a lot of their earlier songs seemed to drown themselves out, especially with vocals. This didn’t stop the band’s performance though, as Ben King relentlessly ran and danced about the stage, even opting to sing in the middle of the crowd as he jumped over the newly installed barrier and caused a ruckus.
‘Only Wanna Love You’ and ‘Times Like These’ sounded far louder than necessary which kind of drowned the sound out of both songs, which should have been brilliant. Chris Kollias was excellent on the drums, and together with the distant sounding vocals of King and sharp guitar from Damian Press the group progressed through tracks off their album In The Midst Of This. Thankfully, the final four or five tracks seemed to overcome any issues from the beginning, and ‘Get Out, Give In’ and ‘Crazy’ were thrashed out with most of the crowd singing along.
The groups epic rendition of Everything But The Girl’s ‘Missing’ from the No Man’s Woman compilation was delivered fantastically, with Simon Carter and Jarrod Murphy from The Cops popping up to lend a hand. Finally, ‘The Spaces Between’ (Expatriate’s first song ever written), finished up the set and topped even the band’s most popular track, ‘Crazy’, both sound and performance-wise. Carter even took over from King to finish the song off centre stage.
The Cops hit the stage around midnight and had to yell at people in the corner to come up and join them. It seemed kinda odd that Carter and co responded to the yelling crowd by opening with most subtle and slow song for the entire set, ‘Get This Girl’. But regardless, they seemed to be well received. Carter got the crowd joining in for ‘Cop Pop’, proclaiming it was easy to sing, the only words needed were “do do do”.
The Cops were in good form, and didn’t seem to have the same sound issues as Expatriate. Older tracks like ‘Recitify’ and ‘Foxtrot Yankee’ well belted out hard and fast, whilst a handful of tracks from the latest album Drop It In Their Laps (notably ‘I Yell Trouble’) seemed much slower than on the record, possibly due to drummer Nicolai Denko no longer being in the band’s lineup. Whilst slower, such tracks developed a new scope on The Cops music.
The string of new songs to end the set were more energy packed than the first fifty minutes, with ‘Le Chic’, ‘Hot Weapon’, ‘Call Me Anytime’ and ‘The Message’ all arousing sing-a-longs and general jumping about. Bassist Rebecca Darwon, along with Murphy and Carter struck numerous poses throughout as the trio bounced around, Murphy moving forward onto the barrier several times.
The Cops returned after their set, joined by King and Kollias from Expatriate to perform the final track of the evening: the crowd pleasing ‘Wallet Puffer Smokes Keys’, which ended the night in high energy.
