The eeriness of the locale is tinged with familiarity to a Perth audience entering a WA music stronghold, where on this particular night the bill represented an exclusively Western Australian music affair.
The audience that packed into the Amplifier Bar was initially treated to performances by New Rules for Boats and Red Jezebel.
New Rules for Boats played to the first mob of punters and with two distinctly different voices of frontman Sean Pollard and frontwoman Miranda Pollard, showed a unique divergence from mainstream rock with light yet thoughtful melodies.
Warming up the crowd ‘til they were toasty and packed into the small confines of the Amplifiers dance floor, Red Jezebel aptly demonstrated the Perth music scene’s appeal and developing sound with new tracks that showed the growing craftsmanship of the band.
Leaving the chill of autumn outside the beer garden door the crowd gathered for a taste of the headliner’s newly completed third major musical edition. Taking to the stage Kav Temperley’s skeleton shirt was a picture of the past. Evident from the outset, Eskimo Joe took on a stance as a mature band, now with what frontman Temperley described as “old songs”.
Opening with rarely played ‘Comfort You’ and ‘New York’ the band took the audience through “old songs” such as ‘Planet Earth’ and tracks from their most recent LP A Song is a City. The crowd took a relaxed and interested approach singing along to their favs and eagerly bopping to the new songs.
The set list demonstrated a fleshed out sound. Interlaced with new songs Eskimo Joe appear confidently disparate from the days when they once sung about ichy apparal and kicked a footy to each other in giant animal suits. Becoming more adaptable with every album the boys shared the roles of bass, lead and rhythm guitar even throwing in an acoustic and seating Joel on the keys for a song.
Unreleased and yet already another crowd favourite, ‘Black Fingernails Red Wine’ spoke to the Perth audience and had the stage a rockin’ with high kicks and hip thrusting by both Stu and Kav. New tracks of ‘Forever Young‘, which Stu jestfully threatened was a cover of Youth Group and band favourite ‘Sarah’ were a continuation of the deeper swathe of vocal and musical accompaniment offered on ‘Black Fingernails Red Wine’.
The night drew to a close but not before the band had a chance to playfully taunt the audience with one more song ‘Wake Up’ and the promise of the new album out on June 10.
