RTR FM Winter Music Festival @Mojos, Fremantle (26/06/10)

Wed 30th Jun, 2010 in Gig Reviews

If you were at the Swan Basement last Saturday night, you wouldn’t have realised until walking outside that the temperature had dropped to a chilly two degrees because Perth’s own indie psychedelic sensation Carl Fox, outrageous entertainers Brash and Sassy and award-winning WAAPA grads The Transients would have had you kicking up a disco storm on the d-floor or watching the action from behind the frontline with a beverage as RTRFM’s Winter Music Festival warmed up the crowd.

Popular break beat DJ and host of RTR’s Full Frequency, Micah, got a well-dressed crowd shoe shuffling around the decks while others sardine-shuffled as they waited overlong for service at the bar. The body heat generating around the compact zone became quite comfortably cosy as the desire to consume beer became second priority to retaining a normal body temperature.

As Carl Fox calmly set up camp for his set, a group of tipsy, gorgeous groupies moved to the front of the small stage. Fox and his band wowed the already-enthusiastic punters with soft vocal harmonies, electronic melodies and humble attitude and interaction with the audience. Beginning with the raw electro-rock sounds of The Key from his debut album Chunky Rainbow, there was no doubt from the drink-spilling jiving few at the front that the night was to be impressively uninhibited. The melodious, distant sounding vocals in Peanuts created a stark contrast to the opening number and all attention was on the stage resulting in an orgasmic titillation for the ears.

Appearing in woolly kaftans, white suits and lycra full-body pieces, Brash and Sassy’s outrageous, poppy set matched their brightly coloured costumes and lived up to expectations. The sexual sounding vocals of vocalists Ava Loverock and Gennaia Febbraio in Are you Brash, Are you Sassy had everyone pumping and eagerly awaiting the next tune as their eighties disco pop rave took down the house.
The five-piece appeared at ease on stage, light-heartedly mocking everything associated with ‘trying to make it big’. Loverock introduced the Annie Lennox sounding Questions by saying “This is a fresh tune. A new song. Fresh. Well, we’ve only played it twenty times, so it’s still fresh.” There were jokes made regarding the removal of Febbraio’s shiny green long jacket to showcase her body-suit to which she responded; “You go to the Railway Hotel if you want to see that… actually they probably get paid more than me.” When Loverock quipped“…than all of us together” they had everyone chuckling at the truth of it all.

The choreographed dance moves by Loverock and Febbraio were an outstanding highlight of the band’s set as vocally arousing Men in Leather and familiar thriller No Milk For You left most gob smacked at the wickedly shocking spectacle witnessed.

Tightly polished and relaxed, The Transients rocked the socks off those who let an exorcism of dance-electronica take over their body. Well-known tune Mischa had everyone removing their scarves for some body disco-jockying. The raw, dark beats in Can’t Let You Be Lonely as well as front man Robert Maszkowski’s vibrant vocals in Night Life reflected the reason this band has won so many awards recently. The combination of Jasmine Yee’s native-like sombre dance style and the extreme straight-jacket jumping Maszkowski engaged in created an interesting contrast, but seemed to work well.

Although it may have seemed like a good idea to be in bed in two-degree temperatures, if you were, you missed out on an absolute killer of a night. Congratulations to RTR FM and artists for another incredible night of entertainment.

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