78 Saab, Peabody, Night Hour @The Annandale Hotel, 26/02/05

Sun 27th Feb, 2005 in Gig Reviews

A bustling Saturday night crowd arrived early at The Annandale Hotel to check out Night Hour, first up on this all-Sydney triple bill. Josh Pyke and company got proceedings under way with their own brand of up-front, guitar driven sound.

The essence of Night Hour was never better found than in the melancholy tinged Best Man, a wistful acoustically centred number. Silver showed the other side of the band as they unleashed a more potent, slow-burning rocker with a big finish to really warm the crowd up.

Peabody hit the stage like a tightly wound spring that has been held down for too long. They charged through their set with an equal mix of anger and energy – Bruno Brayovic’s guitar being squeezed to breaking point as both the bass and the drums follow unflinchingly.

Copy You Copy Me was played a breakneck speed with the highlight Got You On My Radar encouraging those right up the front to bop along – if they could keep up, that is.

Right on time the 78 Express arrived. With the ice well and truly broken by Peabody, the Sydney quartet took to the stage, well received by the hometown crowd. Launching straight into Saviour the effects of having just come off tours with The Thrills and The Shins were immediately evident. 78 Saab’s sound was well rounded and filled every nook and cranny of The Annandale Hotel.

Oozing confidence in front of an eager crowd the band looked very comfortable with themselves. You get the feeling that they have gone through a few things to get where they are and are all the better for it.

Both You & Your Friends and Cops displayed how well defined 78 Saab’s live sound has become – all four instruments blending so well during certain parts, the songs had a seamless quality to them.

Ben Nash’s velveteen vocals during Sunshine gave the performance a real sense of intimacy with the crowd and this carried over into a sing along, the crowd joining in as Ben sang “All in all, I know the way”.

Straying at all times from any tendency to over-indulge with unnecessary drawn out instrumental sections to their songs, the band delivered a set almost exclusively off their new long player Crossed Lines. Jake Andrews’ guitar simply swooned all over No Illusions producing a much more vivid rendition than that recorded for the album.

The band seem so sure of themselves right now that they even trotted out Sound of Lies which Nash defiantly stated was the new album’s twelfth man, it was that popular a tune with the band. Never venturing too far from the heart of each song, All A Lie, Beat Your Drum and Come On are all examples of the band’s ability to deliver a great chorus, building with layered instrumentation until the blend of Nash’s wailing voice, Garth Tregillgas’s pulsing bass lines, Andrews’ soaring guitar melodies and Nicolai Danko’s heavily symbol-driven drumming, over flow into something truly uplifting.

If you blinked you would have missed the time between the end of Never Ending and the beginning of their encore, which climaxed with the stomping rocker The City Is Humming. No other song matched the cohesion, energy and deliverance of their final number. This truly was 78 Saab reaching another level.

With live performances like this it can only be a matter of time before bigger venues are on the horizon for 78 Saab. They have obviously spent time building their sound and it showed with tonight’s performance. This is definitely a space to be watching.