The Model School Album Launch,w/ I Love Space & MerleMorriss, @ The Hopetoun,Sydney, (07/07/06)

Mon 10th Jul, 2006 in Gig Reviews

If a band has played the Hopetoun Hotel it is assumed that they are going places. A day after the launch of  the Alarm Clock Radiation album in Melbourne, The Model School put on an amazing launch where it seemed that becoming the new trend of rock and roll in Sydney was (for a change) not the band’s highest priority.

 Most of the crowd were definitely over 25, and they were actually watching the band instead of adjusting their tsubis. The band was there to put on a show and the audience was there to hear something new.

And that’s what they got. The Model Schools’ new album Alarm Clock Radiation has a sound which can be described as an instrumentally driven blend of folktronica, country and all that floats in between. So on arrival most were probably wondering what the atmospheric vibes of tonight would be.

It took no time for the two support bands, Merle Morris and I [love] Space to set this straight and get the crowd feeling the buzzing rock and roll vibe. Even though the audience is close to the small stage already, the support bands brought everybody in closer.

Merle Morris began by playing pop-rock, tunes with a folky feeling that were very easy to get into, and as people poured through the door and the drinks poured into the glasses, the classic rock feeling started to sprout through in keen applause.

The applause grew naturally, along with the amount of audience members as I Love Space took to the stage. Again, as this band projected their post-pop/indie tunes into the audience, there was applause and drinks all round.

Most who are familiar with the Hopetoun have come to expect an intimate atmosphere between performer and audience, tonight was no exception. The Hopetoun has been much more packed in its time, however there was many keen fans and the way the band made the audience feel was far from empty.

Maybe it’s the fantastic acoustics of the building, maybe it’s the ununiformed audience or maybe it’s the Surry Hills pub setting, which set the perfect scene for the band and allowed them to superbly engage the audience.

Every song from their new album sounds different and every person, whether they had a beer in their hand or not was having a good time. These days, to find a band which can play  a set with a frighteningly simple songs like Into My Arms Again’ and then the fantastically complicated ‘Imitation Slips Away’  one second after, made everybody sure that their cover charge was worth it.

As soon as The Model School began to play, everybody immediately squinted their eyes, thinking that Ben Lee and Beck had hybridised into lead singer, Brendan Wixted. One audience member playfully yelled out “Catch My Disease!” as Wixted hunched over a guitar and held his mouth closely to the microphone in an identical stance.

Although these influences were clearly heard, both in the soft simple way the lyrics were sung and in the technically brilliant melodies, influences such as The Eels, Bob Dylan and R.E.M. also made themselves apparent.

The thing that makes The Model School unique as a live band is the way that they stare down their microphones and make it clear that they are there to play music. They create the same good-time vibe that the rest of the crowed population of Indie bands does, but because of their talented musicianship and the way they incorporate many different music genres, from country to pop, it is obvious that this band has no target audience, and marketing to scencester consumers is not the aim of the band.

In the past the Model School have taken the stage at famous live music dens such as  Sydneys’ Gaelic Club, Annandale and Excelsior hotels. They began by using an old tape machine to record their demos and  it’s this homely atmosphere that they create through their folky sounding vocals and instrumental work, that made this night at the “Hoey” a place where the warmth of all that is associated with rock and roll was dense in the air on this freezing night.