The Naked and Famous,Undercolours @ The Corner,Melbourne (28/01/2011)

Tue 1st Feb, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Considering the bevy of music available to punters at this time of year, The Naked and Famous should consider themselves lucky to sell out the Corner Hotel twice over as they roll around Australia and their homeland NZ for the Big Day Out. They can thank big wraps and two massive singles for that, but is there any substance to the hype in the live setting?

Coming in with a totally different sound to the main act, Undercolours gave a set of 90s style popular rock. With a similar swagger to Jack Black in School of Rock, lead man Flynn Francis didn’t strike you as someone who has only been performing with the band for less than a year. As the set developed, Francis’ voice was often reminiscent of Jon Bon Jovi circa solo career. Won’t You Be Mine is a tune that shapes up quite nicely, although still has an element of mainstream rock cheesiness to it. In the assumedly titled Fall Asleep All The Time, a sound problem with the keys kicks in and starts spitting a loud electronic zap sound out through the PA at random. Unfortunately this carries on sporadically throughout the set.

The positives outweigh the negatives with Undercolours though; their tunes are quite catchy and Flynn’s confidence up front is an important element. Special mention must also go to drummer Karlo Szczepaniak, his particularly tight performance acted as a real driving force behind the set.

The Naked and Famous later walked on stage with no real fuss or excitement, and the crowd’s response was similarly tepid. The opening songs were as on their debut LP Passive Me, Aggressive You, including one of the aforementioned singles Punching In A Dream as second cab off the rank. This song seemed destined to disappoint the frenzied crowd, but Alisa Xayalith’s vocals were maybe even better than on record and the band have done a stellar job recreating this, and the majority of their tunes, for the live setting.

The band has bore the brunt of endless comparisons to Passion Pit and MGMT, and given the tracks that they are best known for this is not surprising. Fortunately they bat a little deeper than that, with Frayed providing a good example of what else they can do and providing one of the more powerful moments of the evening.

The middle part of the set, when a b-side and other lesser known tracks were wheeled out, showed The Naked and Famous had failed to captivate the audience. Save for those jumping around up the front, people talked amongst themselves at this point, or even checked who won the tennis on mobile devices. The band could partly blame this on the fact that despite being energetic enough, they didn’t show a skerrick of emotion during the set, and their crowd interaction pretty much stopped at “Hello Melbourne.”

Young Blood really epitomized the majority of the set thus far, a tight performance showing everyone in attendance how Xayalith is the big talent in this band. It would have been an excellent, albeit obvious, way to finish, but after meager applause the five piece return for an ill-fated encore. It began with Serenade, off the bands first EP This Machine, which proved not nearly as strong as more recent material.

Last and definitely least was A Wolf In Geek’s Clothing, which descended into awkwardness when Aaron Short’s synths, the backbone of the song, suddenly dropped out. For the next minute or so you could’ve cut the air with a knife, as the band stopped and stared, a roadie belatedly hustled in to help, and Short had to again cue up the track little by little. As they finally concluded the set, band co-founder Thom Powers begrudgingly dumped his guitar and heaved his pick against the back of the stage. It was simply a disappointing finish to an otherwise decent show.

It will be interesting to see where The Naked and Famous take their music into the future. They currently have a variety that isn’t exposed in the songs that have brought them to everyone’s attention. They could stick to their guns or attempt to appease the masses, while they add another element by traveling down the well worn path of trying to ‘make it’ in the UK. The jury is well and truly out, and the same can be said for their live show.