In the end, this became a battle of the bands.

To go in chronological order, Ghosts of Television felt like an experiment still to reach a result. The band appeared uncomfortable on stage, dorky and out of place, unable to interact with the audience beyond the brief mumbles of what I can only assume were song titles. There were other flaws within the set; the music was so loud the lead singer was often drowned out by the noise and at times, his voice, fading into screams, was unpleasant to listen to. The problem was though, musically, they were incredibly proficient. I lost count of how many times members switched instruments and despite this, the energy throughout was always on the good side of intense. The audience, as a result of this strange combination, took awhile to warm to them, but by the end, there were some crowd members dancing.

The dancing continued into the second set of the night. I [Love] Space announced straight up that they were going to play the crowd some rock ‘n’ roll and they did just that. Gone was the nervy atmosphere infused into the crowd the set before, the audience here were treated to infectious pop rock songs, repetitive enough to sound as though you’d heard them a thousand times before and fresh enough to hold attention. Yes, heads were nodding and toes were tapping from even the reluctant back row, there were some strange moments of heckling about people’s parents and everything about this set clicked. For a minute I was fearful when lead singer Joel Werner announced they were going to take it down a notch, but the acoustic song that followed proved only that this band was very very good and entirely competent in teasing heart strings.

And now, the real troubles begin.

Laura Imbruglia, who should really stop being known as the little sisterof Natalie, was good. Her songs fit the intelligent pop that seems to be circulating the city more and more since we all fell in love with The Grates. She is cute, endearing and witty, has an knack for seeing the world in a different way and translating that amazingly well into songs that never seem to last very long. While she spoke to the crowd in between songs, it was almost impossible not to like her and throughout her performance, her voice had an incredible strength and capacity.

But, there was a problem and it had nothing to do with the actual performance, just what I think is a strategic mistake. And that was, the presence of a band. I will not criticise the band, because they were good. They were tight and helped to create a fuller sound out of what really are acoustic songs. On Tear Ducts particularly, they indicated the country twang that matched perfectly with the song and the feeling. Except, I can’t bring myself to believe they were appropriate. Throughout nearly the entire set, it was almost impossible to understand what Laura was singing, her lyrics were lost under electric guitars and it killed the emotion that could have been there. The decision to place her on one side of the stage only added to this problem.

Frustratingly, all my complaints about the evening were lost during the far too short acoustic set. Starting with the nearly heartbreaking song It’s Getting Worse Laura was able to find her niche again. Suddenly, the audience could process her lyrics and it was only then she rose above nearly every other good enough female singer who finds themselves performing with a band.

Amusingly, it was one of the songs in the electric set that could have foreseen this problem. Home Sweet Home laments growing old far too young and contains a line that speaks the wisdom that Laura feels she should be playing an electric guitar and making far more noise. Unfortunately, on this one, she’s wrong and I only hope her granny self will kick back in soon.

Check out the pics from the gig here