On their first Australian tour in two years, Bombay Bicycle Club were welcomed by their fans to The Forum. Support was provided from City Calm Down. The baritone vocals and synth of the band makes them sound like a weird but wonderful ‘80’s-style fusion of The National and MGMT. Disappointingly, with repetitive bass and drums, many of their earlier tracks failed to hit the mark but, thankfully, City Calm Down strongly improved by the end of their set.
The unreleased songs they played here were strong and Speak To No End was equally enjoyable. Finishing up with by far their best two tracks – Pleasure And Consequence and Dare – City Calm Down may well have won some new followers: these songs are simply brilliant. Pleasure and Consequence starts off slowly with the bass and guitar in this song perfectly complements front man Jack Bourke’s deep voice. Dare is even better, with excellent synths and drums, leading into something epic. If the band manages to write some more tunes like these, the future will be very bright for them.
Entering onto a completely dark stage, Bombay Bicycle Club opened with Overdone. This was a good choice: nothing gets an audience into it like a sweet light show and a decent amount of cow bell. Following the track order of their latest album, So Long, See You Tomorrow, second up was It’s Alright Now, which failed to deliver the same energy as the opener of the set. This energy was quickly restored with Shuffle, which features a very catchy piano riff making it one of the band’s most danceable singles.
Still, a lot of Bombay Bicycle Club’s songs were too controlled for the audience to lose their shit to. While there were anomalies to this, like the jam ending to Your Eyes, the first half of the concert was just a little bit too tame. For example, Home By Now is so contained and over-thought that it sounds just a bit like Glee having an attempt at an indie rock song. In addition to this, the samba style Feel, while catchy and successful at getting the crowd dancing, was frankly annoying. Thankfully, the dirty bass intro to Evening/Morning heralded a more intense side of Bombay Bicycle Club. The experimental So Long, See You Tomorrow, followed this theme, with some a soulful clarinet and excellent drumming. This, along with I Can’t Believe This, which features a great bass riff, were the best songs of the set.
After a rousing call from the audience for an encore, Bombay Bicycle Club dutifully finished up with Carry Me – a strong end to an enjoyable and consistent performance.
BY JOSH THORBURN
Photo by Anna Kanci
Loved: The sweaty bass player who would have fit in more at Soundwave.
Hated: The awkward love-triangle dynamics of the people in front of me (let’s be honest I loved it!).
Drank: Water.
