Pez @ HiFi, Melbourne(06/02/09)

Wed 11th Feb, 2009 in Gig Reviews

There are few men in the music business who you would trust your daughter with. Whether it be charming ladies man Ike Turner guilty of the odd love-tap, accused murderer Phil Spector, occasional dabbler in all things pharmaceutical Pete Doherty, or serial father Rod Stewart, you can be guaranteed that the apple in daddy’s eye will end up with an addiction, tattooed and knocked-up gracing the covers of tacky gossip mags, probably knicker-less. This was of course until Pez came on the scene. With uncommon grace and humility and eminent likeability, this Melbourne lad has rocketed from outer suburban obscurity to having his summer anthem, The Festival Song in the top 10 of Triple J’s Hottest 100. If there are any parents of girls who have delights on Pez, then fear not for your daughter’s dignity.

The HiFi Bar hosted the video launch for the aforementioned single. It seems an age ago that the song was released, and one could be forgiven for thinking that the horse had bolted, but now that Nova is playing it perhaps the record company thinks there is more life to be screwed out of this track yet. Whatever the case, any excuse will do because Mr P puts on a good show.

Pez’s set began with the video which was precisely the video you would imagine a song about summer festivals would look like: filmed during twilight, short girls on the shoulders of big blokes, crowds dancing and lots of smiles. Wholly unoriginal and totally predictable but in all honesty there is nothing else it could have been.

The set list was a rearrangement of the tracks on his debut album A Mind of My Own. First up was These Days with the sonorous Hailey Cramer present along with DJ, drummer and bassist. These Days is a rare hip hop venture into waltz time and showed off Pez’s brilliant sense of timing and rhythm. This was followed by Lost, Ain’t Got Time ,This Sound and I Wanna Go. Given that Ms Cramer was in attendance, it is rather surprising that she did not sing in Pez’s other tracks featuring female vocals.

Thoughtful ordering of tracks Pez’s tracks encompassing a gamut of emotions created a blazing crescendo to The Festival Song with the crowd rapturous with glee. To further confirm Pez as the nicest man in Aussie hip hop, he played an encore of Heavenly dedicated to his ma and pa and kindly let an inebriated fan dance on stage to the concern of security. Bless.

CHECK OUT THE PIX FROM THE SHOW HERE