Daimon Downey is an excellent guitarist. He’s a rocking drummer. One-of-a-kind on the keys. He must be pretty damn good at Guitar Hero III too. On a chilly Friday night, Downey (aka MC Double D) along with his fellow Sneakies positively set the Enmore stage alight with his rock-star theatrics.
You had to feel sorry for Double D, shunned to the shadows by the overpowering presence of Miss Connie, but he took to his occupation – doing nothing – with a commendable fervour. There he was, shadowboxing the mic and there, moonwalking a tribute to the half-centurion Michael Jackson and there, faux-strumming alongside real guitarist Black Angus. It was almost as if Downey was a ring-in ‘rent-a frontman’, responding to an ad in the Bondi classifieds. He contributed pizzazz and outrageous dance moves to the first part of the set but not much in the way of music. So, whilst Connie belted out perennial crowd favourites Pictures and a stunning UFO with startling ease and everyone tried to work out just who that guy was playing the guitar (that was Angus – he writes the songs), Downey proved that you don’t have to play an instrument to be in a band, you just have to look like you do.
About midway through the set, however, the Double D situation changed. After indulging in a short tambourine performance, Downey finally grabbed some limelight back from the indomitable Connie by (gasp!) singing. The long-haired, bow-tie-donning frontman who was by now sweating with the exertion of his vacuous existence freaked the shit out of most of the unsuspecting crowd by reprising his roles in old favourite Hip Hip Hooray, promising new track Lost in the Future (intense vocoder action for kicks) and the inane but extremely danceable You’re Hot. Where Connie’s show-stealing vocals triumphed early, MC Double D eventually boogied his way back into frame to leave Connie robot dancing hopefully on the periphery.
Oh, insert [and the crowd goes wild] after every previous sentence and you’ve got atmosphere in a nutshell. An eclectic bunch of mutton/lambs, high-pitched tweens and dance aficionados packed the theatre and were encouragingly raucous from go to woe. Excepting that some of SSS’s new material (off recent release 2 ) is as yet untested with a live audience, the crowd voted with their ksubi-dancing and fist-pumping, giving their stamp of approval to the majority of the newbies.
If the Sneaky encore was anything to go by, the Bondi trio has plenty more hits up its sleeves with 2. Extending the Daft Punk drama, Angus got all Triangle-Stage on us with an excellent One More Time/I Love It mash-up. Yes, he pretty much ripped the remix of I Love It straight from Riot in Belgium’s interpretation but did the adoring crowds give a shit? Not in the slightest. Even I, at once skeptical and engrossed by Downey’s early shenanigans, was sad to see the troupe bound off the stage after a fitting rendition of Goodbye. It’s hard not to like them, two albums down and still jumping around.
