Date: July 4, 2009
Venue: The Troubadour, Brisbane
Acts: Washington, Last Dinosaurs, Buick 6
Other, hardier souls would undoubtedly disagree, but it feels bitterly cold outside tonight. Buick 6 are doing their level best to warm things up inside The Troubadour with aggressive blues-based rock of a mould that fits oddly — if at all — with what I can remember of headliner Megan Washington’s lyrical folk-pop. Moments when the bass drops in and then out in a kind of see-sawing action diametrically opposed to the guitar catch my ear attractively in between trying to get a decent photo.
I can’t quite get over just how young and fresh-faced Last Dinosaurs are. The fact they restrict themselves to water through their performance adds weight to the suspicion they might actually be — gasp — underage. That or they’re the most oddball straight-edge band on the face of the planet. Regardless, they wield their instruments with impressive aplomb, generating a chirpy, upbeat guitar sound that’s retro without quite totally chrome in the way that Little Red is.
Washington’s fuzzy-haired guitarist gives me some of the most difficult framing issues of the evening by declining to move in the slightest throughout the hour-long set. Wedged between the seated crowd and front of stage, and limited by lighting to the 50mm f/1.4, it proves difficult to get a shot of the fellow that doesn’t feel just a bit too tight. For her own part, the Melbourne-based Brisbane chanteuse is a challenge as well. Positioned on a dimmer part of the stage with her face mostly obscured by messy I-just-fell-out-of-bed hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses, it really proves a case of waiting for the moment.
Midway through the set, I play silly buggers for a while trying to capture the bassist’s plucking action in close-up, shooting along the body of the guitar toward the headstock. The results are mixed — the worst are total misses, the best one frames the bassist’s playing hand, but the depth of field is perhaps too small to make something truly eye-grabbing.
Washington’s off-the-shoulder is entirely eye-grabbing though, and I just want to smack the tools in the crowd who repeatedly shout out: “Take it all off!” in the face. Maybe they got lost on the way to a Butterfingers gig. Her music charms, without really achieving the cut-through that I expected or hoped for. Perhaps this shows in the crowd response as well — enthusiastic without being wowed. That being said, Clementine is definitely hooky, and set-closer Sunday Best is another I’d listen to more than once as well. Maybe there’s more value to be gained from repeat listens — but I’m not finding out tonight because an absence of merch for sale defeats my quest for a CD.
