Driving down Fitzroy Street in St Kilda, you could clearly tell that is was a long weekend. At the height of summer the atmosphere was bordering on electric, even tense. It felt that any minute the place could explode in celebration of life, or deteriorate into a riot. Thus it was at the Prince as UNKLE hit the stage. Punters had waited a long time for this show, and James Lavelle Incorporated was not going to let them down.
The room was already packed as Sub Audible Hum wrapped up their solid, well received set. Unfortunately, this atmosphere was almost butchered as some DJ mashed hip hop tracks together in what can only be described as a terrible waste of time. Didn’t there used to be an art to DJing, whereby transitions between songs were seamless, beats fluid and moods elevated? It would have been better simply to throw on some random CD left behind the sound desk. But of course it was all just a precursor to the main event.
Greeted by an unashamed roar from the capacity crowd, the set began with the instrumental Chemistry. It proved to be an apt way to introduce a set of dark, tight, explosive electric rock. Barely pausing for breath, the band ripped through highlights from recent album War Stories one after another. It’s hard to pick a stand-out between the dirty rock of ‘Morning Rage’ and ‘Holding My Hand’, the outright funk of ‘Restless’ and ‘Mayday’ ( complete with vocals and visuals of Josh Homme and Liana Moss ) or the more classic UNKLE sounds of ‘Burn My Shadow’ and ‘Keys To The Kingdom’. But then what is ‘classic UNKLE’? Injecting the set with older songs ‘Reign’, ‘Lonely Soul’ and ‘In A State’, it was hard to determine. All UNKLE songs seem to be classic UNKLE. UNKLE is a genre unto their own. James Lavelle certainly has peers, and clearly displays his influences, but with such a variety of band members, guests and collaborators, all brought together by Mr Lavelle, UNKLE is in a constant state of creative flux. This is surely a great thing.
War Stories may not have immediately caught my attention, and change does bring confusion and sometimes disappointment. People always want the next album to sound like the last one, because it is what they know. But UNKLE is constantly changing, and live, with full band, UNKLE explodes. The new songs explode. They almost leave the older tracks for dead. ‘Lonely Soul’ loses nothing when it is not sung by Richard Ashcroft and you can’t help but feel this is an act that refuses to hold back, to wait for people to catch up with them; to follow trends. You get on board and you take the ride, and you get off at your peril, because you will simply be left behind. Perhaps the only disappointment was that they didn’t play ‘Nursery Rhyme’ off of the first album to prove that they have done this rock thing before. But then again that is probably exactly why they didn’t play it! And to reduce the set to merely rock is not to do it justice. Ending with an encore of ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’ and ‘Eye For An Eye’ showed that in spades, as vocals, beats, strings and pure emotion flooded the room for the final time.
Often acts that come down as part of a festival line up don’t always bring their A game. The sets are short, sometimes self indulgent crud, and are often the exact same set they played at the festival, making you wonder why you paid extra to see a band you love when you have heard it all before. The set was reasonably short to be sure (just over an hour), but UNKLE brought their A game to Melbourne. Playing on the eve of their Big Day Out date, this was the first time punters had the chance to see them. This was the time to get it right, to impress and leave everyone wanting more. UNKLE got it right. And I can guarantee everyone who saw them at the Prince Sunday night made sure they fought the dust and the heat and the crush and the distance and the bottlenecks and the teenagers to see them explode out of the Boiler Room on Monday. Wanting more, wanting it all. And they got it. Again.
Check out the photos from this show here courtesy of Don Russell.
