The wonderful thing about Eddy Current Supression Ring is that despite the fact they could have easily sold out The Annandale, they chose to play The Hopetoun, squashing in the hoards, allowing us to get up close and personal with Brendan and the lads. The result was, as usual, spectacular.

The rise of Eddy Current has sure been one to behold – from playing tiny packed out club shows around the traps in Melbourne to being one of the stand-out headliners at last years Meredith Music festival (giving the Gossip a run for their money) Eddy Current have proved that it doesn’t take a drum-machine and Modular to ensure success in oz.

The gig was well and truly sold-out by 8:30 and I thankfully weezled my way into the very hot, elbow-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder sardined Hoey, which was just teeming with anticipation for what all knew was set to be one of the finest gigs of the year.

The Pink Fits did what they do – and do well, however, the steamed up windows (with disappointed faces straining to see inside) were a fair indication of how goddamn hot the Hoey was. By the time ECSR hit the stage we were all well fuelled and stripped of our many winter layers.

Brendan was quite superb in fine manic mode, pacing the stage and warming up with the crowd. ECSR are in their element in small over-full venues and the crowd just lapped it up. They dropped a number of the tracks from the new album Primary Colours which (much to my surprise) most the crowd screamed along too.

The Hoey surged as the energy continued to rise and the band spat out crowd faves Rose, Get Up Morning, Cool Ice-cream and Insufficient Funds.

The crowning moment came though as Brendan lurched himself into the crowd for It’s All Square. He scrambled to the top of the bar and berated the crowd with that awesomely repetitive chorus. As the crowd moved towards him in an act of incensed love, he jumped onto a punters shoulder’s (who proceeded to carry him back to the stage as he finished off the song), Bless em.

Three encores later and it was over and now sitting firmly at the top of my personal list for gig of the year. If there was a belt-buckle that could be awarded for best live band in oz at the moment Eddy Current would have it proudly strapped to their pants.