Halfway into their set as part of the Festival of Perth, lead singer of Yo La Tengo, Ira Kaplan, remarked that his band was not the kind to do all the things rock bands are supposed to, like throwing TVs out of windows. All I could think was that a flying TV could have injected a bit of life into a set that, until that point, was doing little to maintain the attention of the crowd. Offering an explanation, Kaplan continued that they hadn’t realised the concert was going to be held outdoors and had prepared a number of quiet, intimate songs to play, before proceeding into another of them.

The problem was, after fifty minutes of these numbers, each of which bled into the next, the crowd was getting visibly restless. There were certainly highlights during this time, including More Stars Than There Are in Heaven from the band’s latest album, Popular Songs. However, whether because of the open air or the strangely overpowering scent of fried fish, attention was waning.

The problem certainly didn’t lie in the instrumental talents of the three performers. With Kaplan playing at least half a dozen different guitars, Georgia Hubley on drums, and James McNew on keyboard and bass, they showed off their considerable skill to great effect. Each of the three members of the band had their time at the microphone, and this was where they really let the mood down; song after song, thin, reedy voices struggled to rise above the strumming of wire and clashing of steel. Becks Music Box has an excellent audio set-up and great acoustics, which only served to highlight the shortcomings of the vocals.

Finally, the band picked up the pace with the single from their latest, Nothing to Hide, and there was a noticeable improvement in the crowd’s demeanour. Light bobbing gave way to impassioned dancing as Yo La Tengo tore through a number of these catchier, more concert-friendly tunes.

The band ended on a high note with a lengthy track that built on the backing of a church organ and grew in tempo and in sound, adding layer after layer of instrumentals until Hubley was frantically banging on the drums at a fever pitch, singing into the microphone suspended above her as Kaplan waved his guitar back and forth to amplify its distortion. By the end of the song, which must have been a good ten minutes in length, there were more than a few members of the audience who had been converted to Yo La Tengo’s religion.

After a short wait, the band returned to the stage for an encore that they started with their most recognisable song, Mr Tough from 2006’s I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. This got the short set of songs, which included covers of songs by The Kinks, off to an upbeat start that was maintained throughout and saw the band leave the stage to rapturous applause. Surely big fans of the band left satisfied, but for those who aren’t as familiar with their work, the subdued nature of the first half fell on deaf ears.