After Townsville’s favourite folk rock ensemble The Middle East withdraw from the Grizzly Bear Melbourne leg, Melbourne’s 2009 hotshots Oh Mercy slip in to cover. Alexander Gow on acoustic guitar and vocals, and musical partner Thomas Savage on electric guitar and vocal.

The pair in acoustic mode delivering some sweetened pop folk numbers. There’s minimal banter with the band simply privileged to have the support for one of the biggest bands of 2009. The breezy interpretations of the their Privileged Woes record are sung in a Jae Laffer crossed with Josh Rouse manner. The Dave McComb cover, The Good Life Never Ends is one of the highlights and there are a couple of new songs, with Tenderness the pick of these. A safe and well-mannered warm up performance for the main event is what we can conclude. Delicate musings and the crowd are warm.

Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear line up the band side by side. Drummer and back up vocalist Christopher Bear stage right alongside Daniel Rossen (vocals, guitar, keyboards) with Edward Droste (vocals, guitar, keyboards) in the middle and Chris Taylor (bass, backing vocals) setting up on the other end. The harmonies are king tonight as they should be, for this is what defines the band and what made Veckatimest one of the records of the previous year.

Twinkled instrumentation and tribal drums feed into the lead choir boys’ guitar flourishes. It’s all clean and polished and gets to the point, yet as a whole the gig doesn’t blow the mind as a riveting gig should. The band has the arsenal of sound yet they work to limitations in a live forum that a band like Fleet Foxes effortlessly overcome. The performance is by no means sterile but it is lacking an X factor, a wig out, a nerve-shattering, mind numbing out of body type thing.

This said, you can’t question the atmosphere that Grizzly Bear creates and the harmonies are like no other. Close your eyes. Put down your beer and you’d think you were front and centre at St. Peter’s Basilica such is the powerful, hymnal vocals on display. You just can’t escape them. Fine For Now sweeps up the room as Rossen and Droste continue on their merry way – their smooth croon again at the forefront, with ghostly backing vocals from the rhythm fellas floating around in the background. Two Weeks explodes into the majestic wonder that it is. An uber melancholy vocal drawl working in unison with the punchy, flighty percussion on the backbeat as the keys, guitars and a wash of incredible harmonies do the rest. Angelic stuff.

Ready, Able evokes feelings of being in an opium-based stupor riding a carousel at the state fair – round and round we go: pure mind bliss. I Live With You provides the ultimate comedown before building to one of the most adventurous progressions of the evening in the chorus with crashing drums and swirling guitars ringing out throughout the room.

The night is almost at its end and the ebbs and flows provided are quintessential Grizzly Bear, massaging the soul with hypnotic melodies and operatic sensibilities. Foreground is a delight to lose yourself within and While You Wait For the Others is exquisitely crafted in the live setting – the song zigging and zagging with pitter-patter beats that are only really unique to Grizzly Bear. It’s their style and they work to their obvious strengths. And oh they do it so, so well.