The night started out with Vim first on the stage, a pair of ladies cutting loose on giant size recorders similar to the ones you’d see at primary school concerts, only massive. Yeah they were different, to be sure, but Vim blasted those big sticks with their mouths around them like two sassy ladies. Their music was memorable to say the least and looking around the room I reckon every recorder enthusiast in Sydney was there.

Starboard Cast, a four piece from Sydney, were next up and came on strong exposing themselves as band that might be one to watch out for in the future. They warmed an uncertain crowd after Vim with their cello, violin and guitars and those who were arriving down the stairs got a warm welcome, but after starting strong, their sound became bit more of the same like magicians that had revealed to many of their secrets.

Then Schvendes kicked in with their dark moody signatures of sex and murder. This is a band that has been steadily reaching over the great divide of Australia from WA to claw their way into the minds of the Eastern states. Over the years they’ve refined their sound as a five-piece and been compared to likes of The Bad Seeds and PJ Harvey. They were definitely the stars of the night. Three songs in and they’d already built an atmosphere in the Mandarin Club which it seemed designed for, you could feel yourself being transported to a darker past where similar rooms might have been used for sex, murder and a certain kind of smoke. Rachael Dease’s voice live compared to album recordings comes out more confident and yet more raw. She seduced us, the Cello drew us into an embrace, the guitar riffs rode us before the drums slaughtered us.

Only days before, they’d played with The Dirty Three, now in Sydney they were competing with them and Sleepy Jackson on the same night. Dease accused the crowd of really hating those bands to have come here, but we were satisfied with sexy offerings.   

Mexico City came on afterwards and the poor Queensland lads had a lot to live up to, but they brought their own kind of energy to the stage and they used it well.

And to Bat Rider, who pulled out at the last minute, you missed out.