Bonjah @ The Oxford ArtFactory, Sydney (24/03/11)

Fri 25th Mar, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Oxford Art Factory played host to some of Australia’s newest emerging roots, reggae and rock acts.

Opening the evening was The Quixotics, who seemed to have copy-and-pasted out of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ manual on how to write music. With a little less arrogance from the lead singer, it would have been a little more enjoyable to watch a modest first performance from the band.

The evening peaked once the boys from Sticky Fingers launched into their set. The vocal clarity of the lead singer was impressive, as was the togetherness of the band, producing a tight-knit sound. Their heavy-rock-reggae kept the audience perked up.

It was then time time for the New Zealand born, but now Melbourne-based band, Bonjah to take the stage. Launching straight into their new single The White Line, the energy was present, but there was a lack of vocal clarity. The delicious huskiness of front-man Glenn Mossop’s voice, which is so distinguished in their recorded tracks, was lost in the messiness of their onstage sound. Which is a shame, because the single just bursts with high energy and adrenalin.

Going acoustic for Spin With The World, this gave a chance for his voice to reclaim itself. Still not as clear as it could have been, the earthy track brought on some communal ‘hey-ya’ singing. It was very much an ‘Hakuna Matata’ moment.

Moving in and out of genres, Bonjah started off with indie-folk, which soon led to middle of the road, and then to roots and reggae. It was difficult to mould this into one show. Their older numbers; Colours, Fly and Bring Back the Fire, echoed their stylistic association with blues and roots, yet newer tracks such as Something We Should Know embraced the popular new flavour of indie-folk. Without saying that a band must stick to one genre, there was not much flow in their performance as they weaved in and out of these said genres.

Unfortunately, the muffled vocals and sound were a great distraction, but overall it gave fans an insight to the duality of their style.