Taipan Tiger Girls brought the goods with an incredible drone set backed by the Main Hall’s colossal organ, HTMLflowers spat straight fire over immaculately produced beats in The Portico, friendships pushed out a savage onslaught of bass in the Swanston Hall basement and Elizabeth Dixon’s unravelling techno got pulses pumping in the Melbourne Room. It was all incredible – but hands down, the big winners of the evening were Tyrannamen and HTRK.
Rowdy five-piece Tyrannamen performed with minimal lighting in comparison to almost every other performer on the day, turning the basement of the Melbourne Town Hall into more of an RSL-styled gig. Authentic, straight-forward and uplifting – this was a set with balls. Vocalist Nic Imfield’s crooning and howling backed by summery riff-work inspired the most energetic crowd of the day. People instantly started shaking and twisting in unbridled glory, with a gracious encore of I Can’t Read Your Mind serving as icing on an already tasty set. If you haven’t seen Tyrannamen live, get on that now – it’s the most fun you can have with your shirt on.
Back in the Main Hall, HTRK’s performance was contrastingly slow and moody – the backdrop of the massive organ and rolling smoke adding to the ambience of the two-piece’s dreamy guitars, chilling vocals and thumping electronics. Vocalist Jonnine Standish’s lingering voice hooks right into the heart with straightforward lyrical content while guitarist Nigel Yang mops it all up with a drenching of delayed guitar, the result inspiring a nervousness that’s equal parts isolating and exhilarating. The entire set was a rollercoaster of emotion and rich tone, offering reworked renditions of older material and upcoming music alike – ‘Fascinator’ being the definite centrepiece of this incredibly rending performance only amplified by the stunning setting and pounding sound quality. Truly a performance for the ages.
Highlight: Dancing to Tyrannamen. So damn punchy.
Lowlight: All my mates bailing. Sunday hangovers are the real killer, folks.
Crowd Favourite: Tyrannamen’s ‘Ice Age’.
