The Paper Scissors @ TransitBar,Canberra (18/06/09)

Sun 21st Jun, 2009 in Gig Reviews

Making their way through the round abouts of Canberra, The Paper Scissors made it to Transit Bar for a Thursday night show of afro beats rock.

To help them kick off the evening, an indie pop rock band, sourced locally, warmed up the crowd. They were a smiley bunch with fairly strong musical talent behind them, singing and playing well. They played it pretty safe and did nothing to wow the fine people of Transit but did nothing to offend them either. The trio played the cardigan wearing genre well, and threw in the xylophone to round off the cliché. Not quite catching their name and without any obvious listings in the press, their name cannot be mentioned here but hit the comments if you do know em.

The Paper Scissors took their time to get their set up right and have a little drinky before getting on stage. From song one, they rocked. While not enough to get a large crowd dancing at first, by song three everyone was either dancing or desperately wanting to.

Hippy backpackers with oversized clothing and headbands were shaking it the most. Then some stunning good-looking ladies got up and it was all on. The crowd were desperate for more as the largely balding boys were hammering out their funky rocking tunes. Save for the bass player who has a lovely head of long hair, tied back mockingly at the boys struggling to grow a strand. The drummer was in total denial about his receding hairline, attempting to make up a new hairstyle with a front and to the side comb over.

The vocals have that same edginess as the Cold War Kids but they make it their own with a little saxophone action. “Its 1991 all over again” remarked punter Mark from the motherland impressed by Australia’s talent with a sax.

That wasn’t the only thing people were commenting on. The fashion of the night ranged from 1920s flashy glittering dresses to shiny skin tight leggings made of unknown man made fabric that shows off every bump and lump. Well the band wasn’t complaining, complimenting the little army of dancers up front. The only complaints were coming from the hostel upstairs, claiming the boys were too loud. The front man responded, “We are too loud apparently but we can still play something people can dance to”.

By the time they hit their more well known tune Howl, everyone was singing, howling and clapping unprompted along with the band. It was a great performance and the boys got into it with splendidly funny banter and crowd interaction.

Admitting they were full of MSG goodness after having dinner at Happy’s in Garema place, the boys joked that some Swedish backpacker was complaining about the volume and gave their best Swedish impression in the process. Coincidentally, one punter had a “I Heart Stockholm” t-shirt on.

Sadly the fun came to an end after a fabulous set. One backpacker was still calling for an encore even while the drummer was packing up his cymbals. Its hard to believe that it was all for free but only at the Transit Bar of course.