The Dandy Warhols @ The PalaceTheatre, Melbourne(27/05/2011)

Tue 7th Jun, 2011 in Gig Reviews

I’m a zombie after a mentally and emotionally draining Friday at the office. It’s always this way on a Friday and I usually, sensibly, repair to the couch, clutching a beer and seeking out a good pillow of stupid television to feather my brain with. For some reason, I decide that uplifting memories of Dandy Warhols’ gigs I have is enough to pep me up of a cool Friday night; that their crazy, party wit will transform me into a refreshed, night-cattish lady of incredible energy. This is a mistake. The last event I was privileged to attend at this fantastic venue – the Palace (I still say Metro) – was Queens Of The Stone Age. The palpable anticipation and fervour of the room that evening will remain with me forever; expecting the same tension upon arriving for Dandy Warhols was naïve. Though I am slightly late to arrive, the vibe is so underwhelming it’s actually overwhelming. (A friend later says to me, “Yeah, but it’s heroin music.” I stand among the capacity crowd as a lacklustre We Used To Be Friends precedes an equally slow Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth. Everything seems to be a beat slower than I remember it and there does not seem to be one individual in this room who has progressed past first gear: certainly I am not even out of neutral.

Gradually, things start to move. Streams of white light break out over the band as Zia McCabe appears to be losing herself in the sonic swirl of an awesome, space age breakdown – even the sound of a cyber-didgeridoo is eking out over the slowly bobbing heads in front of me – but I remain unmoved. A neighbouring punter remarks to his friend, “I feel like the Muppets. You know, those old cunts,” and I think, “Yes, that must be it. I’m old.” Embracing my inner Statler & Waldorf I move to the balcony. The sound is terrible, and I view the generally inactive crowd from above as Courtney Taylor-Taylor, still eternally nymph-ish, back announces the track from Dandys Rule OK?, which, he cheekily drawls, “…is not a question, okay?” The sonic dreamscape slides into You Were The Last High, the breathy Taylor-Taylor crooning and pouting between Peter Holmström’s guitar conversations with Zia. Melbourne-based Brent DeBoer, seemingly always affable in the background with his voluminous “fathead”, keeps a neat, inoffensive beat at all times. Behind the quartet are freestanding, traffic light-esque lamps: instead of three coloured globes, there are eight white ones, atop each other in groups of two. They throw morbid shadows, inciting the feel of a horror movie set in a psych ward. Taylor-Taylor’s even vocal and the spooky accents of the music complete the drear: he moves to another mic stand and his voice takes on the effect of being cast out over the darkened grounds of a haunted mansion. Heroin music indeed.

The best thing that happens to me since my arrival – that is, a neat, groovy riff wrapped in a totally party Dandy’s pop-song – is now delivered in The Wow Signal – a new song and one that relates to the 72-second, supposedly extra-terrestrial noise recorded by NASA in 1977. Something has definitely clicked. A beautiful electric lullaby commences immediately after and the crowd rejoice in a sleepy sing-a-long that moves into a twangy, country Everyday Should Be A Holiday. The band, having left Courtney to bring the aforementioned to us on his own, return and all of a sudden I don’t know what song we’re listening to and I don’t care. Holmström saves a tepid Taylor-Taylor vocal with excellent fretwork; a sweet harmonica somehow weaves into an ethereal mood where soothing and deliciously harmonious vocals – Courtney’s and Zia’s – are heaven. His velvety, low-register layers with her sweet voice: her solo denouement is gorgeous.

The drums, the groove of You Come In Burned, makes me realise I’ve been ambushed: I am having a great time. The music is invoking action and feeling. They are a great band. They write fucking great songs. They have played nearly every genre I care about in the space of an hour. I am so relieved. Even more so, when the band roll out their version of Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, a dark dirge that fills my expectation of the night, Zia’s crystalline keys lifting everything beautifully. Someone lights a joint; a percussion egg begins to shake in All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey. Taylor-Taylor’s high octave work is really only passable but they build to nearly where I want them to be as I consider the notion that I, and them, are adult contemporary now.

And then my metaphoric pill kicks in: Horse Pills. Bohemian Like You follows on the power of Zia’s trumpet sounds; Get Off erupts into another audience sing-a-long and this time everyone’s dancing. Including me. Amber lights are throbbing above Dandy heads. Shamanic, indigenous singing spills forth from Taylor-Taylor (the best vocal of his for the night, easily) and the sharp silhouette of many can-gripping hands held aloft reminds me of the first time I saw them, and why I still love them.