A committed crowd did their best to enjoy The Beautiful Girls and to a lesser extent, Rogerthat, at the University of Canberra Union Bar (UCU) on Friday night. Both bands wore their influences on their sleeves as they played a night of retro to an appreciative crowd.
First on stage was Rogerthat. Having imbibed a heavy dose of Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, Rogerthat put on an energetic opening performance. They had some of the audience dancing and succeeded in thoroughly warming up the crowd. By the end of their set they had also definitely won some new fans.
While a chunk of the crowd stayed outside or played pool during the support band, those who welcomed the Queensland surf group to Canberra got their just rewards with a sincere show from the retro rockers. One small cluster danced throughout, and while vocally not having a clue what the name of this band was, they desperately wanted to learn it. With any luck these fans made it to the merchandise table to learn the name and reward the band for their trip and efforts by buying a cool shirt or two.
Vocalist Jesse Bailey was comfortable talking to the crowd and had the psychedelic lead singer dance moves down pat, engaging the crowd and enjoying himself. The crowd also enjoyed yelling their support for Jimmy Young on guitar, the other charismatic stand out of the band. The bass player Lach Leckie also got his groove on, and looked like he was having a great time. Playing Chasing the Sun and Jefferson Lane amongst other songs, those that bothered to check out Rogerthat clearly got their moneys worth, judging by the dancing and occasional skipping that occurred.
Rogerthat are currently touring the East Coast. Check the band out if psychedelic reggae rock retro is your thing.
The audience then cheered headliners The Beautiful Girls onto the stage, with everyone fitting comfortably into the UCU for an intimate show. With Mat McHugh on guitar, Paulie B on bass and drummer Bruce Braybrooke intensely bashing away, The Beautiful Girls had the crowd cheering every song and dancing in a fairly tight knot at the front of the stage.
With each successive song The Beautiful Girls showed more UB40 and The Police than anything else, to the crowd’s ongoing approval. After songs such as Royalty, Generals, and Blackbird, as well as She’s Evil and Wrong Side, The Beautiful Girls got a chanting call to return for an encore performance. They obliged, returning to play La Mar – which had the crowd slowly swaying and Periscopes, which the crowd clearly enjoyed dancing along to. The encore rounded off with Music and Dela. The band then called it a night, with favourite Morning Sun notably absent. No second encore was offered to the quickly dispersing crowd – despite a few lonely voices calling “_Morning Sun_”.
The Beautiful Girls continue their tour around Australia before jetting off to the United States. Check them out before they go!
