If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. There’s no avoiding Murphy’s Law; it’s how you bounce back that’s important. The news that The Kill Devil Hills had pulled out of this year’s In the Pines concert at just a couple of hours’ notice could have ruined the day. Indeed, if one of the headliners pulled out of the Big Day Out or Rock-it, organisers would go into damage control, handing out refunds like candy canes at Christmas. But at In the Pines, fundraiser for community radio station RTR FM, the late withdrawal couldn’t do anything to stop the chilled and relaxed atmosphere at UWA’s Somerville Auditorium.
Opening the day was Stina, followed by The City Watch and The Dee Dee Dums. The latter put on the highlight performance of the early afternoon, showing just how far they’d come since expanding their personnel by an extra 50 per cent. Yes, they’re another too-cool-for-bass band but at the end of the day they are a band, they make music and it sounds good. Not to be pigeonholed as another “blues-infused rock” band, their new material is more spaced out, relies little on vocals and is tinged with psychedelia.
After fairly rock-by-numbers sets from The Slow Beings and The Leap Year, The Devil RIdes Out wasted no time making an impression. Though their testosterone-driven rock was nothing short of phallic, bassist Ben Franz (his other band is The Waifs) trod the fine line between sexy funk basslines and powerful rock riffs.
The next highlight of the day came as The Painkillers performed another guitar/drums set just as the heat began to die down and and as the crowds began to build up. Like The Dee Dee Dums, The Painkillers shy away from the two-piece cliche. Their well written acoustic-driven songs impressed, but it wasn’t under their cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart that people really began to feel the vibe.
As always, Burton Cool Suit put in a good innings of hook-heavy retro-pop but on the stage next door, Sex Panther showed them the benefits that 40 years of musical progress can do. They’ve played to every man and his dog lately but their quickfire ITP set trimmed all the fat and showed exactly why they are going to score a record deal when they perform at The Great Escape in England next month. Though they flogged the Killer Pink EP material, the Panther girls mixed it up with a few new tunes that make the prospect of an album release so enticing.
The next band two acts, Sugar Army and Abbe May and the Rockin’ Pneumonia,join Sex Panther in the race to drop the next shit hot debut record. While Sugar Army’s hedonistic indie-rock seemed a little too intense for the cruisey crowds, May fit in much better with her dinnertime set of country-meets-blues-meets-rock. But if tonight’s performances are good indicators of how the next year-or-so will go, Streetlight’s debut album will make Sugar Army and May gasping. The hills-based six-piece performed a typical set of atmospheric rock, but unlike Sugar Army, Streetlight’s double guitar attack and violin created a much fuller sound that had no trouble filling the scenic setting.
Eleventh He Reaches London filled an almost identical role to that of Streetlight but, for two reasons, neither of them the band’s fault, their performance was little to write home about. First, their 30-minute set was sandwiched between dull background music from Day of the Dead and Dom Mariani and the Majestic Kelp. A note to Mr Mariani: please get on with this reunion of The Stems. This Majestic Kelp malarkey is just frustrating. The other issue for Eleventh was that their 30-minute set was, well, 30 minutes long. With the shortest song on their album over seven minutes long, half an hour was never going to do them justice.
At the business end of the night Institut Polaire could do no wrong. The word ‘texture’ gets throw around a lot, but it’s as appropriate as ever when you’re talking about Institut Polaire. Promising a new EP later in the year, their smooth, sophisticated pop came to life with strings, trumpet and some well-thought guitar arrangements. The polar opposite came immediately afterwards when Tucker B’s appeared in front of the crowd dressed in stockings and orange singlets. Whatever it is that Tucker B’s do obviously strikes a (disjointed) chord with much of the crowd, who, for the half-hour the band performed, were glued to the members’ every move.
In The Kill Devil Hills’ absence (a broken hand was apparently the cause), Schvendes began their headline slot a little early. LIke Eleventh, the 30 minute slot didn’t serve them too well but , like the professional band they are, they made the most. They still had time for vocalist Rachel Dease to empty her lungs for a good 60 seconds before beginning Small Mercies Sweet Graves. There was time for one or two tracks from the band’s second long player, which they promise is slated for release later in the year,but the most fitting moment of the day came towards the end of their set when they rumbled through In the Pines, the track more commonly known as Where Did You Sleep Last Night?, from Nirvana’s Unplugged In New York album. Minutes later, set closer Twice the Man, the femmenazi anthem that’s winning the band fans over in Canada, brought their performance to an impressive close and capped off a splendid day in a splendid setting.
