Girls are good
February 18, 2012
By
song list rat
Rat in the Laneway 2012...
GOING to a music festival is often like being inside a psychosis. starts off fun but then the real mood kicks in. it's very hard to predict which way the emotion will flow. at Laneway 2012 the mood was guitar and there axe merchants a plenty. Yuck set the scene with duelling pastel green and pink fender jazzmasters. they wore their dinosaur junior influences for all to see but rather than being a cover band they have created their own million dollar riff which is immediately recognisable as the Yuck sound. Anna Calvi is a small lady with the torso of a flamingo and the pants of a fashionista. not surprising then that she recently played live for the opening of the gucci store in sydney and has played for haute couture Paris fashion week in 2011. man can she play guitar. a fender telecaster has never sounded so sexy. her cover of tv on the radio's a wolf like me was stunning. the Drums hail from florida and while dancing like morrisey they can play guitars like johnny marr. Laura Marling at 21 writes amazing folk music and plays an acoustic guitar like an indi rock goddess. ever hear of Twin Shadow? not me but he knows his way around a yellow telecaster. and fathers you better lock up your daughters as this shadow burns hot. but all that has gone before seems like guitar foreplay when Girls take the stage. if ever there was a guitar that defined the west coast sound it is the rickenbacker. and in the hands of chris owens it becomes a cathartic beast. ownes having been locked in the children of god cult and deprived of listening to popular music for many of his formative years clearly is making up for lost time. his rickenbacker whines and throbs. it wails and cries. it sobs and snarls. and it does all this to perfectly reflect the emotional turmoil of the lyrics. the sparse ballards of Girls three previously released cds thrash their way into every chest in the audience. the rocketing rickenbacker is reined in from the stratosphere by chet "j r" white's bass. just as well as there was a serious nuking on the cards if the frenetic pace continued. many highlights with the only glaring omission being hellhole ratrace. this is easily made up for by the rocking renditions of honey bunny, alex, heartbreaker and lust for life. they finish with a blistering version of substance. what could top that? chris owens then hand delivers a bunch of flowers and the song list to the rat. hard to move on after that but the lights on the museum stage for the french synth-pop outfit M83 seam to attract everyone like moths to the flame. they don't rest on their electronica laurels but add lead guitar and bass with stunning effect. later still and the guitar morphs into the electric harp of Active Child who play one of the most choral sets ever seen in perth. as if they don't want to be outdone in their home town The Panics add lucky oceans on pedal steel for added biff on a number of songs including cruel guards. surely the chinese must have got it wrong. 2012 is not the year of the water dragon but the year of the axe. let's hope the Laneway predictions hold true.
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