It was an exciting night at the Northcote Social Club and you could tell by the state of the crowd that it was going to be one of those gigs you would talk about to all you friends. The crowd seemed really eager and two punters even went as far as to hand craft a snowman mask to wear each, complete with carrot nose. I chatted to one of them for a while before the show and I swear I’ve never met a bigger fan. What a great guy!
Anyway, Second Viennese School were the first band to grace the stage. The duo, both on guitars, played a sort of post-rock jam to a drum loop. It was good to start with, but after 15 minutes it became increasingly repetitive and you wondered when it would finish. This was not helped by the low volume of the guitars. They saved themselves somewhat; during the last five minutes, once the volume was increased, they had more structure in their jam. Still, it was quite a disappointing performance.
Next up were The Temper Trap. I hadn’t heard their music before but I must say they blew me away! They played all the songs off their debut self-titled EP and then some. Highlights of the show included the single ‘My Sun’, ‘Peter Parker’s Alter Ego’ and a drum heavy jam which vocalist Dougy picked up the sticks and had a whack; not on his own drum kit, but on the same one Toby was playing. How they both managed to keep up with each other I don’t know; the connection and passion between the two during this song was clearly visible.
Although some bass problems hindered the start of the gig, The Temper Trap put on a great show. This is a band definitely worth checking out, which won’t be hard; they’re playing both the St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival and V Festival over the next few months as well as supporting Kasabian for their Big Day Out sideshows.
Snowman were next up and the close-to capacity crowd went wild as they walked out on stage. They opened with ‘The Black Tide’ as usual which was somewhat lacking – the vocals were really low and difficult to understand, and the guitars were overly distorted. The guitars cleared up by the third song despite Joe McKee’s vocals remaining low throughout the set.
Snowman proceeded to pump through the songs from their self-titled album. A major standout was ‘Viva La Fever’, during which frontman Andy Citawarman began to shine. For such a small guy, Andy has a massive bag of energy and it shows during this song. I mean, he was quite ecstatic for the first half of the set but once this song started he really went off! Jumping, dancing and howling were among his arsenal of tricks. The more he danced around, the more the crowd danced around. It was as if he was the conductor of some kooky mind-trip love train, and us – the crowd – his passengers. The set could’ve ended there and I would’ve been happy. But no, Snowman wouldn’t have that. They continued to play more of their recent album, including ‘Cocaine Goldrush’, ‘Swimming with Sharks’, and the 11 minute ‘Wormwood’; each song earning a large cheer from the audience. Once again, they closed the set off with a vocal and drum/guitar mish-mash followed by the energetic ‘Shake Your Brains’. This was much to the approval of the crowd and the band left the stage to deafening roars.
Overall the foursome played a great set and they seemed a lot tighter than the last few times I’ve seen them. But once again it was disappointing to not hear anything form the ‘Zombies on The Airwaves of Paris’ EP. It would be good if Snowman put one or two of its songs into their live set rotation. But hey, I’m not complaining though!
