Blue King Brown, Diafrix @ ANUBar, Canberra (12/5/11)

Sun 15th May, 2011 in Gig Reviews

A feeling of déjà vu fell upon the large crowd of Canberrans huddled inside from the cold at ANU Bar on Thursday night. It may have been a different venue and for the most part a varied crowd. A different time slot and a shuffle of bands were also noticed, but the set played by headliner, Blue King Brown seemed awfully familiar.

Beginning their national tour in Canberra, this is the long awaited CD launch for current album, Worldwize. After touring with the album last year as support act for John Butler Trio, it seems as though Blue King Brown may have used all of their material in the show last year. The set didn’t seem to vary much from what Canberra saw in September 2010 at the Convention Centre.

This is not to say that the show wasn’t amazing. It was. Or that the band isn’t immensely talented. They are. Though, it would have been nice to see a show that hadn’t been seen before. This was the first stop on a brand new tour and it would have been refreshing to see a performance that didn’t seem to be a copy and paste of the set that was toured just last year.

Obviously, there were minor differences. More songs were added to the set list and the crowd was more interested in the band, but these things come when you are headliner instead of a support act. Just ask support act of the night, Diafrix. The versatile hip hop three-piece struggled to find a way to draw a crowd of people who were not necessarily avid hip hop fans to the stage. They managed to mix in some funk sounds and their encouragement and excitement to see the crowd moving definitely inspired the audience to dance along.

The night was one for dancing and for sporting a ‘reggae lean’. The two bands hailing from Melbourne brought something to Canberra that you will not find here, holding such unique qualities in both performance and sound.