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Apologies to Elke who were missed due to the all too common ineptitude of Brisbane taxis.

The thing that strikes you first about the Cassette Kids is their immediacy. This has everything to do with singer Katrina Noorbergen who is rightly the band’s centerpiece. Noorbergen exudes charisma and is a fantastic vocalist for this style of music. I use the term vocalist deliberately because the moments where she uses her voice as an instrument to deliver punctuating melodic sounds, rather than delivering lyrics, are stunning.

Guitarist Daniel Schober’s playing is enjoyable and inventive. His playing adds an added texture and thematic overtone to the otherwise straight-ahead indie-dance on offer throughout. This fact, along with the several off-stage samples and effects added to the mix (and the bass player switching to keys for one track) suggests that perhaps they could use a fifth member. While the rhythm section were good, it’s impossible to take your eyes off Schober and more pointedly, the radiant Noorbergen, who promises to be a massive star in her own right whether with this band or as a solo act in the very near future.

It’s difficult to select a highlight from the band’s set because the songs bled together throughout. This wasn’t actually a bad thing because the whole set was entertaining. The band impressed immensely in their better moments and excited with the possibilities of where they might go. One would hope they continue to develop their instrument augmentation, left-turns and sample-based riffs, rather than the boring disco-pop of, say, Sneaky Sound System. The world needs more fantastic female lead singers delivering challenging, exciting indie-dance.

So…what to say about Grafton Primary? Firstly I tried to listen to their LP numerous time during the week leading up to the show, and simply couldn’t. Respectfully I put this down to them being the sort of band that doesn’t really work in the recorded world (as is the case with Yuksek, who was amazing at Splendour). The initial few minutes of the set started well – and I now put that down to the vibe created by the interval song choices – with some interesting electronic dabbling going on. But then Joshua Garden introduced to the world his awful shtick. Standing completely still, dressed in some I’m-a-cool-rockstar get-up with black rimmed glasses deadpanning his inane lyrics that, thankfully, I cannot recall. Did their music translate better in a live setting? These crowd comments summed it up beautifully: “It’s like a song from the Mighty Boosh, but they’re not trying to be funny.” And “The lights are awesome but this band sucks.”

There was a lot going on musically and there’s no doubt Benjamin Garden knows his ways around some keys and knobs, but to this reviewer Grafton Primary were relentless, overwhelming and numbing. To be fair, a lot of the crowd seemed to be really enjoying this display but their opening act was far and away more original, exciting and endearing than this 80’s throw-back synth mud.