Boy and Bear, Jinja Safari,Emma Louise @ The CornerHotel, Melbourne (27/05/2011)

Thu 2nd Jun, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Brisbane-based front girl Emma Louise created one of those swirling internal effects, as if you were dancing inside your mind while your body remained completely still. The songs shared a very consistent mood, yet instead of growing tired, the set seemed to have the opposite effect of hastening toward a close. Morning Eyes, a song written in her parents’ house while they were waiting for Cyclone Yasi to arrive, served as one the set’s real highlights. It contained a dropout chorus along with beautiful harmonies shared between Louise and her female keyboardist; their collaboration perhaps likened to a stripped-back version of Tegan & Sara. The bridge ascended harmonically and texturally, and although all signs pointed to an epic chorus finale, the expectancy of the listener was destroyed by a careful deterioration. For this reason, the song seemed to sum up the band, who are a constant and teasing variation of what you expect them to be. Play It Safe and Darts (written for the female keyboardist), are two tracks worth looking out for, and for those who enjoy the Cajon drum, percussionist Daniel plays one at a Peruvian standard. Emma Louise closed with the Triple J favoured Jungle, which unsurprisingly garnered a lot of appreciation from the ever-growing audience.

During the break a crew of people congregated, seven or eight strong, wearing furry ears and feathers on their heads attached via waist belts. Of course, they had gathered for the pro-animal-dress-up of Jinja Safari. The African-pop quintet opened with the eternally bouncy Forest Eyes, which immediately transformed the mind dancing of before in to the physical dancing of now. During the following song Mud, it became evident that the percussionist Alister Roach had designed his tall hair to carefully compliment his energetic trade on the bongos. He suggested their next piece was a “let go of all your troubles song.” Judging by the amount of people who threw their hands up and chanted in unison, one would think that an African ceremony had very much taken place, a coming together of different kinds of people, furred, feathered and all. The band offered a similarly fitting description of their next song as “a journey, not sure where.” That was the fun of it. The song was Stepping Stones, and with its atmospheric fusion of tones, it brought to mind the intro to popular television show The Mighty Boosh. Yet at the same time, that mind wandering could have been attributed to Pepa the keyboardist, who in his furry vest and mop of hair, looked just like our own domestic version of Vince Noir. Lead singer Marcus’ stage presence is best described as a kind of human glitch, his body seems to convulse on each reverb-filled note that he accentuates. Eventually the sitar came out, with its long neck occupying half the stage, and everybody knew that Peter Pan had arrived. For their final song, yet another jam and chant number, the crew of animals stormed the stage and danced with a man dressed in complete red spandex. It was a likely ending for such an unlikely band.

Heart rates had become genuinely confused, having been slowed by Emma Louise then sped up by *Jinja Safari, slowed by the intermission, and then sped up once more when the lights dimmed. Silhouetted members of the much-anticipated Boy & Bear appeared on the stage. The word intermission is very much an intentional one, for from the moment that the lights came on and Dave Hosking stood in front of the microphone, the setting transformed from a Friday night pub gig in to somewhat of a theatre setting. It was a night for breaking records. First of all, this gig had sold out in forty minutes, a first-time in the Corner Hotel’s history, described with admiration by Hosking as “pretty fucking cool.” Secondary to that, they had blown one of the speakers during sound-check, causing it to actually caught fire. Hosking described this as one of the most “rock’n’roll moments of their lives” and joked that they were “no longer a folk band anymore.”

They opened with a new song, to which snippets of a chorus – “dying days, go in grace, float away, some day”- could be heard. It only took one dip in to new water to send them cautiously back to familiar territory. To the crowd’s delight Hosking calmly voiced the beginnings of Mexican Mavis, and to his delight, the crowd reciprocated by singing him the ending.

If you want information on their new material then there isn’t much to report. If you like Boy & Bear, you will continue to like Boy & Bear. There is expectedly some growth and mini-revelations, notably in the more sustained and noisy aspects of the guitar work. But what is even more exciting, and perhaps frightening, is that the vocal and guitar melodies felt even more intricate than before. Blood To Gold soon arrived along with a heap of new songs, something Hosking hoped the crowd wouldn’t mind too much. Part Time Believer, with it’s Horse With No Name aping chorus chord progression, particularly impressed.

Now a set standard, the band’s cover of Crowded House’s Fall At Your Feet is still a fantastic part of their repertoire, as is crowd favourite The Rabbit Song. The most chilling song to look out for upon the release date though came towards the end of the set, and contained the distant lyric – “I’m terrified I’ll achieve nothing.” There was a feeling in the room that this song could be the one that filled some kind of missing piece, which perhaps completed the album, or stamped the word “growth” on all of their heads. But at this stage it was all still a hopeless conjecture and there were no more album teasers to follow. Boy & Bear declared that encores were collectively thought to be lame, so Hosking introduced the single Feeding Line as their final song. It proved a fitting end to the evening for a band that is now established and yet still brimming with potential.