Hot Little Hands @ TheBirmingham, Melbourne(2/07/09)

Tue 7th Jul, 2009 in Gig Reviews

I’ve been meaning to get to the Birmingham for a while. One of those tick-that-one-off-the-list type things to do in Melbourne. I suppose I didn’t because it was an establishment allegedly popular among right-wing extremists, although as I never went it could have been run by the CWA for all I knew.

But now I’ve been, to see the Hot Little Hands play on a winter Thursday night. Tick.

The Violent Flames a three three-piece who’ve made the well-worn move from Perth to Melbourne played first.Their promo material tells me they supported Bon Jovi at Subiaco Oval last year, and this makes perfect sense. The Violet Flames (a little similar to Violent Femmes?) produce traditional rock with Jackson Proud’s high register voice bearing comparison to ex-Wolfmother Andrew Stockdale’s vocal stylings.

The military theme – evidenced by Proud’s camouflage t-shirt and some lyrics about soldiers and war – is a bit suspect, as is the awkward banter. Otherwise, I enjoyed The Violet Flames’ manifest enthusiasm for their own brand of straight-up rock’n’roll.

The Box Rockets, next up, were decidedly more lounge than the band before them. The first half of the set was a little bit Phoenix, and call me crazy but Walk On had flavours of the Police. Notably the Box Rockets boasted an enthusiastic group of fans in the audience who I was surprised to see knew numerous song lyrics and actually had set moves to some of the songs. Something to do with their extreme youth I suspect.

Hot Little Hands were certainly the most contemporary of the three bands, and by contemporary I mean they are synth-heavy which is of course itself derivative of the eighties, and who knows what came before that.

All five Hot Little Hands managed to fit themselves and most of their instruments on the Birmingham’s stage, which is the smallest I’ve seen outside a dollhouse. Amps didn’t make it and remained stage-right.

So they got everyone squeezed on stage and the headline show started. More discordant than I remember, the music seemed computerised, which totally belied the shambolic setting. The Hot Little Hands manage a compelling jerkiness, kind of off-beat Postal Service or Architecture in Helsinki.

The Hot Little Hands’ varied musical fare reflects real engagement with a range of musical forebears, breadth of scope and of course talent. While HLH’s output is a little schizophrenic, who really wants every band neatly bottled and labelled?

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE GIG HERE