Ball Park Music @ Jive,Adelaide (29/07/11)

Sun 7th Aug, 2011 in Gig Reviews

It was hipster central at Jive Friday night as Brisbane’s Ball Park Music stopped by Adelaide as part of their ‘How I Met Ball Park Music’ tour, ready to bring the fun and show off some new tunes in anticipation of the forthcoming release of their debut album.

First up for the evening was local band 20th Century Graduates, a band who I had heard a lot about and new of but weren’t all too familiar with. From the get-go I understood why they were placed as the local support act for the tour, their style of indie-pop is infectiously catchy, much alike Ball Park Music’s, and their upbeat, cute, dance-inducing tunes had the crowd sufficiently warmed up. I’ve noticed a lot lately that many of these indie-pop/alternative bands seem to have a penchant for brass instruments, with trombones, trumpets and the like becoming more and more prominent within the genre. Sometimes it sounds clunky and unnecessary but 20th Century Graduate’s use of the brass instruments just added to their appeal and seemed to have everyone’s feet tapping along to their tracks, including the single Keeping Up With The Jones’

Next on were another local band City Riots who were supporting Ball Park Music for the entirety of their tour. I’ve seen these guys a few times over the past few months and it’s great to see them constantly working on stage to perfect their performance style whilst gaining new fans at the same time. Their indie/garage rock tunes seemed a bit heavy for the bill tonight, particularly when placed after the delightfully fun 20th Century Graduates. Because of this, it seemed the crowd weren’t getting in to their set as much, which is unfortunate as they constantly produce solid sounding tunes on stage, but they never seem to get a comfortable level of audience engagement, always choosing to distance themselves from the crowd or vice versa.

An ear-splitting computerised voice signalled the arrival of the main act to the tiny Jive stage as the sextet all snugly squeezed behind their respected instruments and launched straight into smash hit Ifly, something which I think took the audience aback as they were expecting that a bit further down the set. Nonetheless the crowd went nuts for it, singing along to every word and revelling in the excitement of it all.

Ball Park Music are pretty renowned for being a fun-loving, lively stage act and tonight they didn’t disappoint. Lead singer Sam Cromack, although geeky in demeanour, suits the frontman label to a tee, and I think he enjoys the juxtaposition of his looks from his performance style. Throughout the set he stands on the kick drum, he mounts the guitarist (multiple times), he takes his shirt off, he pours beer into the front row, and he gets into the crowd. He basically does it all. We were treated to a few unreleased tracks from the forthcoming album as well as all the hit singles, Rich People Are Stupid, It’s Nice To Be Alive and Sad Rude Future Dude and a cover of Presidents Of The USA’s Peaches, much to the delight of the crowd.

Rounding off the short set, they were joined on stage by City Riots for a one song encore (another cover) of The Kinks’ All Day And All Of The Night. While the set was reasonably short for a headline act, I’m sure once their debut is released they will be back with a plethora of songs under their belt for us to boogie along to, as everyone was so caught up in the enjoyment of their set that the seven or so songs they did play seemed to go by so fast, leaving us wanting more than a one song encore.