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It’s a hard subject, revivalism. Artists today have to carefully choose how much of their idols’ influence they are prepared to wear on their sleeves. Wolfmother struck gold with their addictive blend of psych-rock, even though many thought that they were doing nothing new. In terms of musical technology, dance music may be progressing still due to the ever-changing nature of samples and sequencing, but for rockers, a guitar is still a guitar. There are only so many ways that one can play a riff, smash a power chord or program effects in a pedal. Yet music fans continue to love the guitar, vocals, bass and drum combination that serves many bands so well, even though it has been going on for almost a century.
Which brings us to Melbourne 5-piece Little Red who are currently flavour of the month with many media outlets across the nation including indie staple Triple J. Only forming in 2005, the boys have shot to fame mainly due to their winning of national band comp, Garage 2 V. Logic suggests that if they beat the thousand other bands wanting the festival slot, they have to have something a little special and this showed by the almost capacity Sunday crowd who descended to the Basement to check them out.
By the end of the Holidays’ set, the crowd was thick and growing and The Holidays made the most of the room’s attention. Sounding a little like The Silents if they hadn’t listened to so much of the Vines through high school, The Holidays sounded crisp, clear and unfortunately like nothing you haven’t heard before. Not that this should be a problem for any up-and-coming bands, judging from the form of the headliners.
Debut LP Listen to Little Red was well received by fans and critics when released in June of this year. Little Red opened with their signature vocal harmonies and multiple guitar washes making the similarities are obvious, but pigeonholing them as the Beach Boys copycats of the 21st century would simply be unfair. With lead vocalists switching almost every track, it became clear that there are no passengers in the lineup with all members making very definite contributions to their sound. For starters, all the vocalists (the four members besides drummer Taka Honda) have very strong voices. From Dom Byrne with his scratchy Julian Casablancas howls, to bassist Quang Dinh’s strong and impressive vocals, to chief tambourine player Tom Hartney’s deeper, almost baritone that perhaps wouldn’t even sound out of place on Australian Idol. These boys could all front their own band their voices are that solid; and when they all sing together it sounds pretty damn good. Rolling through their now more well-known songs such as Waiting, Misty I and Witchdoctor, the lads sounded and looked sharp as a wolf’s tooth and were very well received by the large crowd. They do tread a fine line between innovative reinterpretation and utter cheese, but for the most part Little Red come out on top and they would have surely made some new fans at Sunday’s gig. Finishing off with one of the album’s strongest tracks Coca Cola, there was to be no encore, but one thing is for sure, Perth would be seeing Red for many years to come.
