Opening the night’s excellent bill at the East Brunswick Club were Melbourne’s Summer Cats. As fellow Slumberland labelmates with The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, both share years of C86 appreciation behind their sound as well as a split 7” in 2008. In comparison, Summer Cats have more of a Go-Betweens/Flying Nun’s twang to their twee, leaning decidedly more McLennan than Forster.

Led by diminutive front man Scott Stevens’ strong honey vocals, the six-piece raced through their set of short, punchy bubblegum power-pop, hooks colliding like a traffic pile-up. Tracks like Lonely Planet and the fuzzed-up party of Hey You stood out, and the shared girl/boy vocals of Wild Rice proved something special, though over a whole set the cutesy effect stifled some of the magic. Despite the sugary overload, Summer Cats have clearly nailed their distinctive sound and set the night’s disarmingly feel-good vibe off to an enjoyable start.

Following Summer Cats were the Crayon Fields, back off touring their newest album All The Pleasures of the World nationally for the Big Day Out, with their red rose motif intact and entwined to microphones. The band look comfortable with the new material, making jokes about bad band names and sticking mostly to excellent tracks from the record such as Timeless, Mirrorball and the wonderful title-track. They also tried out a new track, possibly called Someone Like Me, which shimmered with all those golden sixties harmonies the band use so well. They’re off to tour the US and SXSW soon, and are sure to do us proud.

Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure At Heart played the first of their two Melbourne shows, still riding a wave of critical fanfare for last year’s magnificent self-titled debut. With such high expectations, I was unsure whether a live show could translate to the same heights. Kicking off with _This Love Is Fucking Right, a twisted tale of sisterly love and dark rooms with all the right Field Mice nods, any worries disappeared instantly amidst a giddy surge of three-chord, distortion-infused guitars that ecstatically transported the room.

With a name like Pains of Being Pure At Heart and singles with titles such as Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan, the band are self-consciously placing themselves as today’s vanguard of twee, sneaking in lyrical in-jokes, with everything from The Pastels, Black Tambourine to The Smiths discernable in their sound. Sporting a Manhattan Love Suicides t-shirt tonight, indie-pop’s new poster boy Kip Berman was all shining, dark eyes and boyish demeanour, graciously gushing at everyone and everything with the unvarnished heart-on-your-sleeve approach of his twee luminaries. Through the show, the charming Berman made numerous shout-outs to his mum who’d come over from Philadelphia, and confessed to the band’s new-found love for pineapple-flavoured UDLs after requesting “whatever sixteen year-old girls drink here.”

Playing almost all the album, songs like Young Adult Friction prove why this band are not just fashionable revivalists. POBPAH play exhilarating indie-pop that sounds fresh rather than derivative, and they’re damn fine at it. The songwriting is simple but deceptively smart, bursting with immaculately-placed hooks, making these upbeat tunes so guiltily catchy. Alex Naidus’ bass lines are swoon-worthy, the drumming is tight and keyboardist Penny Wang’s vocals counter Berman well. Their approach is affectionate and intimate, though thankfully free of the scrappy homemade aesthetic which blights much early indie-pop, adding a sparkling sheen to the dark hints of Berman’s lyrics.

The saccharine Teenager In Love and Stay Alive soared, propelled by guitars melancholic and jangly enough to make Johnny Marr proud, while Come Saturday infectiously borrows the dirty, rushing noise-pop of early My Bloody Valentine to stunning effect. The blissful rendition of Higher Than The Stars from the new EP of the same name, while not as synth-driven as on record, could only excite imaginations about what POBPAH still have up their sleeve.

They close with the rollicking Pains of Being Pure At Heart from the first EP. The song’s chanted refrain “We will never die” acts like the band’s manifesto and as the packed-out crowd started singing along, captured the youthful exuberance of just playing in a band and having a great time. The whole experience was uplifting, leaving only a room of grinning faces and that wonderful satisfaction of a band you love being just as good as you’d dreamed they would be, so much so that I was back for the next night.

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