Last Saturday night was a night of having high expectations met, but also one of stumbling onto great new experiences.
Last Saturday night was a night of having high expectations met, but also one of stumbling onto great new experiences. Lucy and Darian of Wet Wings hit The Toff stage as the evening’s support. It’s early days for this Christchurch-Wellington act and a few screws need tightening, but they show great promise. There are some off-key moments early in the set, and the songs are at their strongest when they’re short on running time and when the vocals are not in unison. It’s a charming performance, but they need a little more time to gel together.
No gelling time necessary for Vermont’s Mountain Man, however, who – it’s not hard to believe when you hear them – connected in a vocal sense the moment they started. Their Appalachia vocals meld together to create a sort of enigmatic super-being with magical powers. The ladies were expecting a cool response from the crowd (Melbourne being ‘the New York of Australia’ and all), but the audience were instantly entranced. It is slightly disappointing that many people couldn’t be bothered getting to their feet for an international act. Yes, it’s quiet folk. Yes, the band have no shoes. But it’s not really fair to clutter up the front half of the room and make all the standing punters cluster around the bar area like sardines in a stuffy room.
Aaaaanyway, back to the music – and heck, it was sublime. They manage to flesh about their album to a full hour and their deceptively simple folk tunes hit another level in a live environment. The quality level remained high throughout, though the highlight of the night was, predictably, Animal Tracks. But there were surprises too. The threesome’s casual, amiable stage presence somehow heightened the angelic effect of their perfectly pitched voices in action. A random QnA sparks anecdotes that then spills into songs – a hilarious take on Trey Songz’ Say Aah no less.
Mountain Man go completely unplugged for the last three songs and their mighty powers seem to just get even stronger. They even manage to get the audience singing in rounds. We Melbournites may be cool, but we’re not that cool.
