The band room was heaving from the very start of Vaudeville Smash’s show, with no love lost between the five-piece and their ardent fans since their last run of gigs and this, to promote new single Best Night. The classic Roller Disco was punched out early on, at a slower pace than its recorded incarnation, which actually worked really well. Singer Marc Lucchesi is one of the most present frontmen you could see live – he’s pressing skin with the stage-hoppers, now he’s jogging on the spot with delight at brother Dan’s killer beats, now he’s playing a goddamn flute like a sexy Puck. The whole thing went the way you’d imagine a Vegas show to go, wherein the songs are faultlessly honed and almost always end on the one (as in: three, four, one), with a blast from a band so unified that you’d have to guess there was family involved even if you didn’t know it to be true.
Session keyboardist Luke Saunders must have been cooking in that black shirt (same goes for drummer Dan, actually), but he was brilliant at making slow, pulsing chords throb straight through your neck and into your hypothalamus. At one point the vocal harmonising evoked some kind of pop-angel congregation: it was a mixture of love, pain, guilt, amazement and imagination.
By the time Best Night came around, Vaudeville Smash had well and truly proven that they can do tight-as-fuck disco and do it properly, just in case there was anyone left at the Northcote who was in two minds. Best Night presented a most-faithful adherence to the recorded track, although sadly Lucchesi’s sax did not have live autotune applied. The true joy of the song’s message, however, definitely does itself justice as a live experience over the recording.
For the encore, the three Lucchesi brothers (Marc, Dan and bassist Luca) performed an a cappella rendition of The Greatest American Hero theme Believe It Or Not. After this the rest of the dudes collected themselves and we were treated to perennial favourite The Old Man. Dan’s beautiful, building fills made the blood rush, and the positive energy absolutely roaring from the dais accompanied the crowd’s shouts of the repeated line, “You’re fucking beautiful, you blow my mind.”
Vaudeville Smash are exactly what live music is all about, for God’s sake. If you don’t love them, you’re an idiot.
BY ZOË RADAS
LOVED: Dan Lucchesi regally surveying his domain.
HATED: Very little.
DRANK: All the alcohol in the venue.
