The Butterfly Effect, TrialKennedy & Sleep Parade @Metropolis Fremantle 02/11/08

Wed 5th Nov, 2008 in Gig Reviews

Sleep Parade drew in the crowd with their prog-rock as they played as a unit throughout. They impressed with Leigh Davies’ vocal range and the constant rhythm changes during Passengers. They were playing as if they were the headliners, with Davies headbanging and pleasuring his guitar and Dan Teng killing his drumkit. Melodic, fluid, dark and despondent all at once, with Davies’ soothing vocal complemented by James Livesey’s harmonies, they ended with Weeping Walls after Livesey urging us to buy their CD so barefoot Davies can buy some shoes.

After copious amounts of sound-checking, Trial Kennedy arrived and they too seemed to want to own the night with their standard rock. Guitarist Stacey Gray and singer Tim Morrison played off each other the whole set, exhibiting a whole lot of bromance on stage. Gray’s gumby legs made for some very flexible back bending moves but Morrison seemed to have only a few standard poses in his “rockstar” repertoire – intensely staring at the audience, dipping his mic stand to stare at Gray, and banging on Shaun Gionis’ drums. Oh, and showing off how long he can hold a note. It’s hard to fault their performance, as musically it was spot on but there was just something a bit off, like they were a bit arrogant or something and the crowd took quite a while to warm to them.

And finally, The Butterfly Effect entered to the Jaws theme. A packed house were ready for them and they began with Worlds on Fire from new album Window and the Watcher sounding like their tribute to Muse. Singer Clint Boge was restrained and standing to deliver his vocal very expressively, obviously gearing up for some kind of explosion then bam! He let loose and the crowd was introduced to the pure theatre that was to continue. The screen panels of naked ladies on stage added to the operatic feel (without the operatic sound). Boge gave an inspired performance carrying his theatrical expressiveness throughout each and every song. Kurt Goedhart gave a twitchy delivery on his guitar looking like one of those toys with a bobbly head. The rhythm section of Ben Hall on drums and Glen Esmond were concrete throughout.

By playing both old and new, The Butterfly Effect were able to deliver heavier songs, more melodious songs, tender, desperate and angry songs. Room Without a View had a bit of everything, as it started out with funky guitar grooves then went soft then heavy. It was A Slow Descent when the crowd unleashed into the first lot of moshing and singing along, One Second of Insanity saw Boge conducting and Window and the Watcher prompted more singing along from the crowd gone wild. Boge ripped off his sgt pepper/military-esque jacket after his gentle vocal and the unremitting instrumentals on Final Conversation.

Once the jacket came off the band became more real, and with Boge addressing the audience for the first time, he was brought down to earth from his exaggerated persona. He seemed to let rip even more now and this gave license to the mosh to get more rowdy with crowd surfers galore. Every song was a highlight as they powered through without fault. Whoever said men are incapable of expressing their feelings needs to come to a The Butterfly Effect concert and let out your rage, desperation, love, sadness, hope, you name it. Boge included the audience throughout by encouraging sing alongs and directing his gaze at various times around different areas of the room.

After Gone, the band exited then after the crowd had screamed out for more they came back as the back wall was lit up to reveal another art-work in the same style as their new album art. After Crave, Boge genuinely thanked the crowd for one of the best shows of his life and due to the quality of the band’s performance it was hard to not believe him. They closed with Sum of 1 after which Boge jumped down to meet the crowd and the whole band left the stage. The crowd shouted for yet another encore, and truly seemed to expect it to happen as many hung around just to see if they’d be lucky, but it was just wishful thinking.