“The Broken Strings tour, for us, is an idea that allows us to present to you an alternative and expanded version of our music, which you are (hopefully) already familiar with.”

Or so the program reads. Yes, a gig with one of Australia’s hardest-working rock acts the Birds of Tokyo is a seated, calm, serious affair. The boardshort-wearing bogans are ordering champagne, not VB, at the bar, Beirut is playing over the PA system, Glenn Richards and his acoustic guitar is supporting and there’s an intermission planned with enough time for band and audience alike to re-stock.

On that note, I arrived just in time to see Glenn play himself off with One Crowded Hour. I’ve never been an Augie March fan unless I am drowning myself with red wine alone, and this didn’t change my sentiments.

The last time I saw the Birds of Tokyo, I was caught off guard by Ian Kenny and company’s dress sense, despite their rather uninspired live show.

This night, they start the set without a single member; their string quartet playing a short medley of the band’s hits. My first thoughts were that they could build a concert off this concept alone (forgetting that the Fourplay String Quartet already make a career out of it). Nevertheless, I question how prepared my fellow audience members were for this; later in the night some try to clap off-tempo during solemn moments, leading me to believe they might not be too familiar with theatre show decorum.

The band and pianist Glenn Sarangapany join the strings onstage, with Amour for Liars being the first song to get the – œBroken Strings’ treatment. It’s noticeable throughout – from their interpolation of Russian Roulette to the more country-orientated version of Wild Eyed Boy – that they haven’t just tacked on some strings and pianos to their songs.

In fact, in this subjective opinion, some of the songs come off emotionally stronger in this setting: The Baker’s Son, Off Kilter and even Marvin Gaye’s soulful I Heard It through the Grapevine are given new lives as brooding, dark odes sitting somewhere between the wails of Jeff Buckley and The Dirty Three’s epic instrumentation. It was leaps and bounds above the usual Birds of Tokyo fare.

It’s unfortunate, then, that for all the effort put into making this tour sonically diverse, the drums remain the same thundering, overpowering constant. On one hand, they had to keep something from their electric origins as to not put off an audience full of fans. On the other, it feels like they’ve gone close to undoing all their hard work by not incorporating some more imaginative percussion elements. On the topic of distractions, having a craning camera obscure the view of half the audience is not – œprofessional’, despite how much you advertise the concert DVD recording. It’s just plain annoying.

But if there was ever a winner from this very peculiar format, it would have to be Ian Kenny himself. Here he sings beyond his usual screaming falsetto, showing the true range of his voice. As he declared that the concert was “probably the most civil thing this band has ever done,” you wonder if maybe he has a future, post Karnivool and Birds, in something a bit more vocally challenging (theatre, perhaps?).

And while the band leaves to two standing ovations, I only wish more people got to experience this. This show was (for most of the band, at least) an illustration of skills and talents beyond turning one’s amps up to eleven. It was classy, intricate, beautiful – all the adjectives you usually wouldn’t put on the Birds of Tokyo.