The crowd is eased into the Evelyn with Darren Sylvester’s easy going C86-esk indie rock kicking off proceedings. Sylvester’s voice drifts through softly-softly lyrics while spaced guitars and jangly keys fill the rest of the space. Songs give off a slightly over-produced feel but it’s worth looking over, at least judging by the looks of delight from the slowly growing crowd.

Unfortunately, much-hyped locals (Rat vs Possum( tear down the goodness that Sylvester built up. While fitting that the avant-guard pop act would support someone similar in Ponytail, Rat vs Possum’s set was a struggle from the start. Struggles with equipment meant punters were treated to a flat set of interference while band members shot off looks of indifference. The set came together towards the end with a spirited simultaneous drum solo from the band, but won’t be a show to remember.

Now there’s nothing wrong with sitting in your room and playing with your keyboard all night. You can even bring a friend over and create songs together. It only becomes a problem when you decide that you want to charge money for random strangers to watch you play these songs. In a nutshell, this describes Brooklyn keyboardists Telepathe. Back in Australia for their second tour, Mellissa Livaudis and Busy Gangnes get busy on their instruments while thumping overproduced drums blare away in the background. While a few hipsters up front tell themselves that they are really in Brooklyn, the rest of us in Fitzroy patiently wait for the whole thing to end quickly.

Then it was time for Ponytail. Despite the room only being a third-full, one would swear they had 50,000 people around them. Bodies move to the pounding drums and baby talk of lead singer Molly Siegel. Then, the power goes out three-quarters through the track and everything stops.

“The amp is broken. Or something” exclaims Molly. The crowd are asked to sit on their thumbs while people with torches investigate, CSI style. A crowd member asks for stand-up, but the only joke could be that this show will end early. Someway, somehow the amp is fixed. The music restarts and the journey begins once again and just like the amp, the action is turned to 11.

The band feeds off the crowd, the crowd feeds off the band. Despite Ponytail having clearly defined songs, everything seems to blend together like a perfectly made smoothie. Guitar work is detailed, drums sound huge, vocals are warbled. Molly gasps thank you into the mic after each song, out of puff from running around the stage. It’s a massive jam – high-energy and super fun. If you’re in the crowd and not moving, you’re probably dead. By the end, band members are high fiving punters, punters are high fiving other punters.

The band looks bemused, seemingly confused on how they pulled a rabbit out of their hat given how this gig kicked off. Ultimately, Ponytail put in one hell of a live show, which is even more amazing for a band with one album behind them. My only wish is that all shows I go to could be this satisfying.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE GIG