The Corner Hotel hosted its own miniature festival on Friday night. While the idea to host a bunch of up-and-coming indie acts was a brilliant one, it seemed a little lacklustre by its conclusion. Seven local acts hit both stages of the Corner for the first (and perhaps last) ‘Uh-Huh Mini Festival; back and forth for about four and half hours, with mixed genres defining each set of musicians.
Death Before Death Gang hit the side stage first up to an unfortunately tiny show of heads. The small bunch of early-comers stood far back from the stage as frontman Kristinn yelled above his repetitive guitar. You’d hardly call this guy a singer. His delivery, similarly to that of Ground Components’ Joe McGuigan, was more of a screaming mess than anything else. Up the back on drums, Natasha let out some diverging beats as the pair rammed through the one or two minute long tracks. DBDG opened Uh-Huh in a rather harsh fashion, though this would soon pass.
A mixture of gothic and garage sounds was smeared all over Reptiles, who hit the side stage with a devilish gloom shadowing their heavy punk. Dark themes seem appropriate when your act is fronted by a copy of Cousin Itt, with singer/guitarist Em constantly ensuring his hair was covering his entire face. As the foursome rammed through some rather raucous material (enough to dissuade the “kinder” punter), they became more and more entertaining to watch – constantly moving around, thrashing their guitars about and becoming genuinely exciting for the eye.
The main stage lit up in a sea of pink lighting as the ‘Almighty’ Galvatrons pranced out in all their glory. These boys are proud to call Melbourne Rock City their home and jumped right into the thick of their energetic stage show from the get go. Behind the added electronic elements, the Galvatrons – with their big guitars and even bigger hair – are, at heart, a tribute to cheesy ‘80s cock rock. You wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest to hear their sound as the soundtrack to some trashy high school movie of the same decade. Don’t be fooled though, these guys know how to entertain. With flashy guitar riffs, punching fists and “whoa-oa-oa-oas” all over the joint, they had the crowd shaking in no time. Moreover, the Galvatrons aren’t afraid to let everyone know what geeks they are, asking the crowd to get overly excited about a song about robots.
Glitzy guitar effects-riddled Cassette Kids came next, as the Sydney group delivered a somewhat – albeit electronic – primer for Young & Restless later on. Another addition to the all-too-popular indie/dance fad happening at the moment, Cassette Kids opted to use dozens of guitar effects instead of simply having synth on board. Daniel Schober on guitar and Daniel Deitz on bass seemed relentlessly energetic, with Schober spending half his time standing on his toes and jumping around madly. Frontwoman Katrina Noorbergen shared a similar energy, only a little more dangerously as she screamed about like Y&R’s Karina Utomo, though with perhaps a little more listenable than Utomo. At one point Noorbergen almost threw her microphone stand at a front row admirer and at another she flipped Deitz’s pedal board with an angry thrust of her mic lead. By their end, their stage presence proved to be one of the strongest of the night, despite it probably being the most dangerous.
The curtains were drawn back at the main stage and the bass that began to pummel out was enough to make swallowing your beer a difficult task. Dardanelles enjoy their bass, and they obviously love treating their crowd to an entire-body vibrating session – with every second a shaky one. The group’s dark dance sound drew some excited heads in the crowd. However, somewhere between the end of the Galvatrons set and the end of Cassette Kids the crowd had dwindled considerably, leaving the back half of the venue rather vacant. Dardanelles didn’t seem to care, and they played with joy in their faces; singer Josh grinning wide and jumping up and down relentlessly. Josh’s unique voice remained strong despite his physical exertion, as tracks from Mirror Mirror filled the half hour – standouts including the epic Alone Is Not, Footsteps and the album’s title track that concluded the set.
Flamingo Crash came flouncing about in all their pop glory as the Corner lost even more patrons, but weren’t deterred by the deteriorating crowd. Their quirky, melodramatic sound was enough to bring a smile to anyone’s face, and mixed with their equally quirky look, they were a complete package of good times. Isaac Emmanuel ran down who was in the band – Scooby Doo’s Thelma on keys, Michael J. Fox on guitar, The Muppets’ Animal on drums and Sesame Street’s Ernie out front on bass and vocals. Fair enough as well, they all pretty much matched their given characters. The dance-friendly numbers played out over the band’s half hour, each a hint at how great their upcoming album is going to be, though disappointingly many in the crowd seemed too unenthused to dance.
Finally to round out the night, “scream queen” Karina Utomo’s band Young & Restless rampaged until one am. Utomo might be singing lyrics advising listeners to “listen to Satan,” but quite frankly the crowd were pretty much already doing that. One minute there’d be some frantic, breathy singing and the next – like a mallet to the head – Utomo would be screaming more out of her lungs than seemed naturally possible. The small crowd that remained were loyal to Y&R and jumped around in front of the stage, constantly having to catch Utomo as she tried to jump into them (funnily enough, they weren’t interested in her crowd surfing and kept pushing her immediately back on stage). She spent one whole track raging about below the heads of the crowd on the floor, whilst idiots attempted and failed to crowd surf.
In the end, Y&R seemed an odd choice to have headlining this event, and considering the crowd dispersing after The Galvatrons, perhaps the cheesy rockers would have been a more fitting finale. Still, the idea behind Uh-Huh was a great opportunity for young bands to show off their stuff to an unsuspecting crowd.
Photos courtesy of Anthony Smith
