Rapids are a Sydney band and Purple Sneakers is a night from Sydney and I don’t always like to admit it but, you know, I’m a girl from Sydney and part of me felt very much at home at this gig and proud of the awesome things Sydney can produce.
Rapids are a Sydney band and Purple Sneakers is a night from Sydney and I don’t always like to admit it but, you know, I’m a girl from Sydney and part of me felt very much at home at this gig and proud of the awesome things Sydney can produce. Purple Sneakers at Miss Libertine is the kind of night that you can really spend many, many hours at – even without live bands playing – but the addition of weekly live music has really made it quite a good place to see indie acts that haven’t quite made it super-big yet play tight, intimate sets.
On stage, Rapids look young – they play with an energy and fresh-faced enthusiasm that has a certain unselfconscious charm to it, allowing them to really showcase what brilliant songwriters they are. Their fast-paced, often angular form of indie rock has serious Born Ruffians flavours, which go down a real treat. Their drums are sharp and tight, their bass lines drive along and their often sparse guitar lines are both fun and jangly and well thought-out. Their two incredibly catchy singles so far Get Better Than That and The Philip, The Hawk exploded quite easily. Get Better Than That has this incredible moment where backup vocals sing a soaring harmony line across the bridge and bring the song to a jaunty, joyous high, tying all the handclaps, the bass line and the descending counter-melody on guitar into a complex, layered and perfectly crafted song.
The Philip, The Hawk has a darker flavour, and shades of Radiohead and The National come into play. The unusual melodies that Rapids take risks with play out very well on the stage, with accurate timing and harmonies really helping to accentuate the ingenuity of the writing. The recording of The Philip, The Hawk has a certain reverb-y, echo-y sense that the live performance replaces with a strong energy that the complex syncopated drum line really communicates. The crowd (who seemed to have appeared from all over the place, with a fairly large Sydney contingent) were by this stage (the last song of the high-powered set) fairly uniformly dancing and moving, tambourine cameo-ing and generally digging the really freaking interesting sounds that these guys make. Equal parts catchy, clever and straight-up wicked. Worth checking out next time they visit.
