“Did you see me?! I’m like semi-famous!” shouted the pretty-boy who stage-dived at Apes’ gig at the Grace Darling on Saturday night. Any other gig, he would have been turned around, slapped across the face with the back of a hand and told to get a fucking grip. But everyone just laughed and kept walking, because it was pretty difficult to be at that gig and walk out in a shitty mood.
Once the music kicked off with last year’s debut single Seven, the crowd went ape-shit (see what I did there?) and proved beyond a doubt they knew every word of every song. I’m not as big a fan of the single they were launching, Pull the Trigger, but they did play their other cracker, Helluva Time, which got the crowd roaring. It was a high energy set for a young band that only put out their debut single last year, and they’ve won their devoted following with some reasonable airtime on triple j and even a spin on BBC1.
The sold out gig even ended with a good old-fashioned stage invasion to put a smile on everyone’s dial. The band was musically tight and apart from one song where lead singer Benjamin Dowd forgot the lyrics because was “freaked out” that the crowd was singing it all for him. Boy has pipes and can crank that shit out.
But musically, these guys have a little way to go before they find their groove – they’re borrowing a little heavily from their ‘inspiration’, which include the likes of The Vines and Hives.
Apes bill themselves as garage, but they don’t sit in the category totally comfortably and they definitely end up at the harder end of the spectrum in a lot of their songs, but there were moments of veering off into some unexpected musical tangents, with appearances of almost psychedelic rock undertones and even some funky punctuations.
It was also one of the most diverse but trippy crowds I’ve seen at the Grace bandroom and these guys had all the style subsets covered, with hipsters, Chapel Street-chic and rock gods all in attendance. Ultimately, Apes are a good live proposition. It’s not at all surprising that they’ve been working the festival circuit, with catchy tunes that get the crowd pumping.
BY ISABELLE ODERBERG
Loved: The crowd losing its shit.
Hated: When Dowd forgot the lyrics to his own song.
Drank: Beer and more beer.
