Richard In Your Mind, Pikelet,Voss, Cat Cat @ ANU Bar,Canberra (24/9/10)

Sat 2nd Oct, 2010 in Gig Reviews

SEE THE GALLERY HERE

It seems most of the indie hipster types had better things to do on a Friday evening in which the co-headlining Pikelet and Richard In Your Mind came to town only to be greeted by a lacklustre and unenthused turn out.

Alas, the show must go on, despite the seemingly apathetic folk who paid good money for the night’s entertainment and appeared to be bluntly against any sort of interaction with the talented bands giving it their all; preferring rather to resort to shoe gazing (not the good kind) wistfully at their feet as if in a collective state of torporic boredom.

This was by no means due to the music on offer; local acts Cat Cat and Voss each taking a turn at warming the crowd before their inter-state comrades took the stage. Playing a relaxed blend of indie rock tinged with pop hooks, Cat Cat played a lively and entertaining set that set an upbeat vibe for the rest of the night (at least on stage), which was promptly followed by Voss and their post-colonial blend of folk, alt-country and all things indie. Both bands performed well and were more than entertaining, yet a forlorn crowd hesitantly avoided venturing too close lest they get bitten.

Sydney’s Richard In Your Mind picked up the baton with its eclectic and miscellaneous mix of disparate musical genres, resulting in a varied and continually evolving set that was not only entertaining but intriguing as well. An honourable mention to the few who got moving and grooved along to the music, proving that at least a few people were having fun.

Pikelet wrapped things up with a surging and delightfully stochastic set. One could easily take great difficulty in accurately defining Pikelet’s sound, each track haphazardly leaping from one genre to the next in a quasi-electro-clash/ambient/new new-wave swirl of diverse sonic architecture. Almost tribal rhythms that are harshly and effectively juxtaposed with delicate melodies, synth and overdriven guitar (to name but a few of the ingredients) somehow synergistically converge into a bizarre but delicious post-modern web of sound for simply beautiful dream-pop vocals to gracefully flirt with. At times chaotic, yet only for order to be restored (and just as surely torn apart shortly after), Pikelet played a brilliant set that ended the night more than adequately, even if most people didn’t really seem to notice.
Their loss.

SEE THE GALLERY HERE