Posts Tagged ‘ i heart hiroshima ’

Frankly! @ Brisbane Powerhouse

September 14th, 2009

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Date: September 12, 2009
Venue: Brisbane Powerhouse
Acts: Peaches, I Heart Hiroshima, Tenniscoats

Maybe it’s the pricey tickets. Maybe it’s the slightly outre nature of the acts on offer. Either way, the black, marine-ply main floor and upper-level balconies of the Turbine Room have a lot of empty spaces as Room 40’s Frankly! mini-festival kicks off. For the adventurous few, the mish-mash line-up offers gems: the cutely twee guitar pop and cheesey flash animations of Hong Kong-based The Pancakes disarms the crowd; the oh-so-earnest Jamie Stewart pulls fans of Xiu Xiu in close to coo over every electronic blib, strangled guitar chord and moaned note.

Tenniscoats‘ husband-and-wife duo recently wowed all with their transcendental folk-minimalism on the top floor of this very venue. I doubted they could better that gig. I was wrong. With the aid of fellow-countrywoman Nikaido Kazumi, Saya and Ueno Takashi turn their sights from their usual melange of poignant Gymnopedie-styled ambience to a more whimsical world of bright echoing guitar notes and playful layers of soprano glossolalia. In some ways, it’s a paradoxical performance — one moment all serious faces and concentration, the next full of child-like joy and impish bunny hops. Should avante acts involve getting down among the crowd like you’re a Wiggles performer and getting everyone to wave their arms back and forth We Are The World-style? When it’s this beautiful and this much fun, who cares?

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I Heart Hiroshima @ The Zoo

August 10th, 2009

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Date: August 7, 2009
Venue: The Zoo, Brisbane
Artists: I Heart Hiroshima, DZ, Stemford Hiss, Seja Vogel

A difficult night not so much due to the quality of performance from the artists as general exhaustion taking its toll — and the inferior quality of some of these photos probably bears this out.

Seja Vogel is really upbeat and fantastic in Sekiden. So, why a stilted, awkward performance that comes across like she’s tooling in her bedroom?  Maybe she’s aiming for raw and unpolished, but unfortunately, the dirge-like drone of keyboards loops and drum machine comes across more of the order of unrehearsed. Stemford Hiss follow with Church-like atmospherics but sans the presence of someone a Steve Kilbey figure. DZ then blow the cobwebs away with jack-booted efficiency. I’d previously heard their impressive tune The Mess Up via the wonderful Brisbane Sounds compilation, but it simply didn’t prepare me for their sonic brutality.  Wave after wave of thick, chunky chords force-fed to the audience at ultra-high high volume. A revelation.

This leaves I Heart Hiroshima a bit of a mountain to climb, but they seem tight and not-at-all jaded after flogging their wares around Europe the last couple of months. The new stuff has bedded down well — I’m really liking Shakeytown now — and it sits well alongside the older material. Their rendition of The Chills’ Pink Frost is tops. They ought to drop Red Hands from the repertoire though — I think it’s a bit slow, one-paced and not particularly inventive. But, by this time, I’m simply exhausted and even though crowd and band are still going at it hammer and tongs, I head home early.