It wasn’t that long ago that Dominos seemed destined to propel The Big Pink from the relative periphery of playing in noise bands and running a record label to the centre stage of stadium rock adulation. Its chorus was absolutely colossal, its verses ice cold and super slick and its sound was both audacious and familiar, leading many to believe the duo would be leading lights of the newly minted genre of shoegum.

While the world domination didn’t quite eventuate, debut LP A Brief History of Love was a tremendously assured debut, a record worth getting excited about. But on a quiet Sunday night in Sydney, the energy level amongst the assmebled starts out low.

Openers An Horse pick up on the mellow vibe, tailoring their setlist to include a ballad among their upbeat and straight-ahead indie pop. There aren’t many tricks to what they do, but they’re a pretty likeable and confident outfit these days, with the unevenness of first EP Not Really Scared now a distant memory. Camp Out is a particular highlight, seemingly simple, but having some of that same unshakable jangly catchiness as their former tour partners and admirers Tegan and Sara.

Too Young to Love opens proceedings for the headliners and immediately establishes their freewheeling approach to the live arena. The frenetic, building intro pushes further into shoegaze territory and the woozy euphoria of the melody leaves pop behind for something altogether more arty and interesting. Two songs later, the brilliant Velvet is twisted into beautiful noise, Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell duelling on bass and guitar and adding rough edges to the tune’s elegance.

The title track, apparently a rarity in their set, again moves slickly from ambient atmospherics to pounding rock, the sound fleshed out by extra players on keys and drums. The full band is also well-placed to bring out the dynamics within songs, like on Crystal Visions, which initially brings to mind Jesus and Mary Chain with its buried melody before being jammed into something more loud and imposing. Sadly, they don’t treat us to their remarkable, dark take on Beyonce’s Sweet Dreams tonight, but an energetic rendition of Otis Redding’s These Arms of Mine is a more than adequate replacement.

The set ends, inevitably, with Dominoes, the crowd truly energised by now, yelling along with that thumper of a chorus and waiting patiently as the band depart to leave behind a cacophony of noise and light that threatens bleeding ears and epileptic fits. There’s no encore, just that slightly confusing ending. It’s a question mark rather than an exclamation, an apt sign-off from a band that’s neither content to stand still nor ready to reveal their next direction.

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