I thought I was going to die. The temporary Melbourne Festival hub felt like it was going to tear itself apart, the opening toms of Brainfreeze testing the tensile strength of every rivet embedded within the structure, rumbling the wooden floor as if a gaping passage straight to hell was ready for boarding. It was mortal euphoria, the waterfall of volume crashing down like the goddamn Niagra.
It didn’t really let up for a second throughout the performance, with tracks clocking in around the 10 minute mark, Andrew Hung and Ben Power made each one count. The cauterising Colours Move was the only selection from debut album Street Horrrsing, marking the only instance Power utilised the floor tom to his left. Tarot Sport highlights Surf Solar and Olympians were all-obliterating, each of the pair eliciting cheers during several key moments.
Visually, there’s nothing too interesting about two dudes occasionally exchanging glances from either side of a desk covered in trinkets. They more than compensated, with a jerry-rigged pair of Xbox Kinect cameras enhacing the realtime action with an array of visualisation effects and a low-lung and sizable mirror ball peeking up from behind the desk.
Just as they opened the set with the first track from Slow Focus, the set concluded with the album’s closer Hidden XS. The five tracks from Slow Focus (the aforementioned plus Sentients and The Red Wing) came into their own in the live setting, evolving into true beasts.
They returned to heed the overwhelming demand for an encore, tearing into Tarot Sport deep cut Space Mountain.
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
Loved: The sound in the venue was truly phenomenal.
Hated: That I could only see Fuck Buttons twice in one week.
Drank: Brews.
