The Grates @ The Metro, Sydney(12/11/11)

Wed 16th Nov, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Ah, what to say about The Last Dinosaurs. Well, they sound like they should be popular, what with all their squeaky guitar riffs and syncopated rhythms which seem to be such an integral component of the indie scene these days. The crowd watching them at The Metro on this night was nothing to sneeze at. But what is special about them in a live setting? Not really anything I can put my finger on. These boys seem nice enough, but I have to confess that I was pretty bored throughout this set, and although they seemed pretty happy-go-lucky onstage, they also felt a bit too self-conscious and contrived at times.

Patience Hodgson is a one-woman show alone. I really can’t fathom how she retains enough energy to sing with all her chaotic jumping, dancing, flinging about on and off the stage. But she is wonderful to watch as an audience member. This was probably the best thing about this Grates show, which, I have to say, suffered quite obviously from a sound set-up too simple for what The Grates have now become. There were pre-recorded (or offstage) bass and key parts in some songs, but this didn’t quite suffice. I would say that the band definitely requires more than vocals, guitar, drums now that they’ve taken a more complex approach to songwriting with their latest album Secret Rituals.

Nonetheless, I was quite surprised at how much of this set was made up of songs from the band’s first two albums. All of them, including energetic renditions of Science is Golden, Trampoline, Burn Bridges and an explosive Inside Outside to close, were big crowd-pleasers, though the audience response to the first single from Secret Rituals, Turn Me On, was possibly greater still. This whole show was consistently full to the brim with power. It was just a shame that some vocal and guitar parts were a bit washed out at times, and the afore-mentioned lack of instrumentation didn’t help with this. If you didn’t know any of the songs being played, I think the dynamics of any of them would have been completely lost.

The Grates still have it, but they’re let down in a performance context, and this, for me, is a band that is now too small for the sound they are trying – and could absolutely be succeeding – to make (as well as some unrelated but pretty significant sound issues on this night). And although Patience is more fun to watch than most bands collectively, it would be nice for the music to be up to the same standard, not to mention to see the other band members get involved sometimes.