What kind of band calls themselves The Holidays, names their EP The Holidays, and names the single off said EP Holiday? Well, support act The Holidays, evidently. The up and coming Sydney-siders play the kind of effervescent and jittery guitar pop that has seen a thousand and one bands don a set of skinny leg jeans and attempt to re-interpret Is This It. Ultimately, The Holidays’ sound and lyrical narrative places them somewhere between The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys; toe-tapping fun without being particularly memorable. While Planes, Living In Hotels and the aforementioned Holiday evidenced solid pop sensibilities and melodic knack, there was little depth in the material with which to identify and connect with.
You think it would take the de-classification of a number of FBI files to have documented evidence of a time portal opening. And it would, unless you happened to be present at the Amplifier Bar on Saturday night, as the Frankfort High class of ’59 had their prom band Little Red taken right out from under them. It opened during Face That I Can’t See, just as Johnny waltzed Darleen around the dance floor after earlier that day scoring the winning touchdown in the Kentucky – Louisville rivalry game. Thankfully for the band, the portal opened in a convenient enough location; a packed club full of kids just as eager to sing and dance and “rock to the break of day”. The Amplifier mirror balls didn’t know what had hit them as their very reason for existence finally came into startling clarity.
A fun mix of barbershop, blue-eyed soul and mild white boy funk, Little Red wind back the clock to a time when bands actually sang “she’s so fine, she blows my mind” without a hint of irony. With impeccable harmony and melody it is easy to see why they have been taken on as the flavour of the month over at Triple J. However for this reviewer, what should have come across as unbridled joyful pop instead came across as a corny throwback. Originality in the modern age shouldn’t simply consist of re-hashing a bygone musical era untouched by other bands. It doesn’t help when you want to punch the drummer’s face in for wearing the stupidest of wide grins and swaying his head side to side on every bloody song in a manner that we thought had been outlawed on March 28, 1971 when the final Ed Sullivan show was broadcast.
That said, the band was clearly having a blast and the jam-packed Amplifier crowd absolutely lapped it up, proving that the joy of the prom transcends all generations. So with that in mind, it may pay to heed the words of a famous band who, like Little Red in ‘57, have had the privilege to play for Fonzie and the rest of Happy Days gang at Al’s Drive-in diner: “I don’t care what they say about us anyway, I don’t care ‘bout that.”
Horn section and all, Coca Cola closed the night just as it began: sweetheart hands intertwined and a dance floor full of ecstatic kids. As the last notes rang out, everyone streamed for their Chevy’s to drive out to Lover’s Lane and celebrate this most unexpected occurrence of time travel.
