Earlier this year, due to my increasingly dire financial situation, I told myself I would try not to attend too many gigs of bands I had already seen multiple times, in other words, those regular local bands. Now I think about it, these bands are the ones that need support the most and the reason they gig so often is to try and gain themselves much-needed fans, but hell, there are certain bands that I have seen multiple times in the last twelve months with very little obvious change to their set, sometimes nothing changes, and I think to myself, "Why am I still spending money on this?" HOWEVER! There's a certain band from Queensland that I have seen numerous times, and every time they come to town, I find myself going back, due to their consistent ability to entertain their increasingly-large crowds. And so it was that Dead Letter Circus rolled into Melbourne town once again, after a very successful 2010 and a well-received lap around the country at the beginning of 2011 with the Big Day Out festival. Opting for some slightly smaller venues than their last tour, possibly due to the "I've seen them before!" factor, the "sold out" signs nonetheless went up again! Along for the ride were exciting new supergroup Floating Me, and in Melbourne, theatrical progressive rockers [Me]. Now, I couldn't really say no to this!
The night got off to a grandiose start around 9pm, with local up-and-coming four-piece [Me]. Despite the unfamiliarity of the material, the crowd that had arrived quickly warmed to their bombastic brand of rock. Very heavy on the keyboards, and led by the impressive pipes of Luke Ferris, the band lived up to the expectation that many had gained from hearing past reviews saying that the band were taking their musical cues from acts like Muse and Queen. Personally, I found the Muse comparison a little lazy, and I thought Ferris's vocals (and the backing vocals of his bandmates) were a lot more Freddie Mercury than Matt Bellamy. Despite the obvious comparisons to their musical influences, [Me] put on a great show and injected plenty of their own style and originality into the tunes that filled their short set. Those that turned up at this early stage of the night seemed suitably impressed, and at the end of the night, I and the group of friends I was with were all leaving the venue with copies of all of their CDs they had on sale!
Up next was a highly anticipated performance for many in the crowd, despite Floating Me being relative "newcomers" to the scene, having formed just last year. However, although the name may be a new one, the individual musicians in the band are certainly familiar to those who have been following their Australian rock over the past 20 or so years - Andrew Gillespie (vocals), Antony Brown (guitar) and Tobias Messiter (keys) are all former members of 90s group Scary Mother, while the rhythm section of the new band is guaranteed to wow the younger crowd, considering it consists of Jon Stockman from Karnivool and Lucius Borich, formerly of Cog! The expectations were high, and Floating Me did very well to justify the amount of hype that is building around the new act. Gillespie perhaps could've interacted with the crowd a bit more, saying very little other than the obligatory "thank you" between songs, but there was certainly no faulting his vocal performance; his Jeff Martin-meets-Chris Cornell baritone is one of the strongest assets this band has. He was also helped out by the ever-versatile Lucius Borich, who surprisingly is still using his overhead swivel microphone that was such a trademark feature of Cog's live performances. Like [Me], the band had to work to win over a crowd who were unfamiliar with most of the material played (their album, although on sale on the night, hasn't been "officially" released yet), but they did have the advantage of well-known personnel, and they did get a very rousing response for Sugar, which was released as a single last year. The band finished off with a stellar Bezhumous, featuring an intense extended drum solo from Borich, and another song which I'm told was actually an old Scary Mother track. Can't wait to see more from these gents in the future, which is looking quite bright for them!
I had hopes that Dead Letter Circus would do something a little different for this tour, particularly an attempt to mix the setlist up a bit with some oldies that we hadn't heard in a while, or even a debut of Walk (which is the only song they haven't played yet from their all-round awesome album This is the Warning, despite now having toured it three times (four if you count the BDO)). However, with the familiar opening of The Mile, it was clear from the outset that the band were going to deliver a performance that would seem just a little bit "samey" to those who had caught the band four times since their album launch in May last year! The flipside of this is Dead Letter Circus are a pretty impressive live unit, and don't disappoint on a stage even if they are bashing out their old tried-and-true routine. I wouldn't have come back to see them again if they didn't blow me away on previous tours, and even though this particular gig wasn't one of their best, there was still plenty of spark to keep the crowd satisfied. On the second song of the night, Reaction, some extra cameras appeared in the photo pit and onstage, with vocalist Kim Benzie explaining that a film clip was being shot for an upcoming release, the news of which certainly excited the already responsive crowd! As the band worked their way through a collection of favourites from This is the Warning and their self-titled EP, the entire venue looked to be having a great night as usual, with enthusiastic pogoing and very loud singalongs becoming commonplace - Benzie didn't even need to ask! The encore of the set was a rousing rendition of the album's first single Here We Divide, before those extra toms appeared onstage and we all knew what was coming. As the introductory speech to album closer and title track This is the Warning played out over the PA, Benzie welcomed to the stage Sean Bailey of Sydonia, and of course, Lucius Borich from Floating Me. I was hoping that, well, because it's Lucius freakin' Borich, they were going to give him something extra to play in the way of drums, but disappointingly he was merely playing the floor toms, in exactly the same manner as Bailey, and toward the end of the song Benzie and live guitarist/keyboardist Tom Skerlj joined in. Sure, five people playing drums at the same time sounds pretty awesome, and looks damn cool as well, but when they're all doing exactly the same beat, and it's being done in exactly the same way that it was done on previous tours, one can't help feeling that it's losing some of its impact. As I said, Lucius should have been given something a little bit more interesting to do, as what he was doing was no more impressive than the performance of anyone else that's joined in this song over the past year. Nevertheless, as the band left the stage and the curtain onstage was pulled closed, the punters slowly leaving the venue were all wearing that post-gig "I'm exhausted but I've had a fucking awesome night!" expression on their faces. Because when Dead Letter Circus play a gig, there's really no other way to be.
SETLIST:
The Mile
Reaction
This Long Hour
Disconnect and Apply
The Drum
One Step
Cage
Alien
The Space on the Wall
Next in Line
----Encore----
Here We Divide
This is the Warning (with Lucius Borich of Floating Me and Sean Bailey of Sydonia)
(setlist actually taken from Sydney show. Looks good to me though.)
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