Posted by Danni Le Toullec on February 11, 2011
Yannis Philippakis is the kind of frontman that security guards hate and fans anticipate. He's unpredictable, and has the kind of blatant disregard for his own safety that makes venues want to revisit liability contracts.
With his floppy Elvis-style curly hair falling across his face, he climbed the Enmore Theatre speakers and lobbed a microphone stand into the crowd. Following it swiftly with his own body. Twice. Yannis mentioned that he spent his day sussing out Sydney’s finest medical centres due to a suspected cracked rib, but clearly the show goes on.
From the opening lines of ‘Blue Blood’, Foals drew us in with a striking combination of rich, stripped back vocals and intense energy that didn’t waver once during the entire show. They smoothly transitioned into ‘Total Life Forever’, the title track off their latest album - released May 2010 and shortlisted for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize. Working with producer Luke Smith this time round, Total Life Forever sees the band experimenting with ambient soundscapes and even dabbling in a ballad or two. ‘This Orient’ and ‘After Glow’ show they are not afraid of stepping away from the slightly more upbeat sounds they were previously known for. More...
foals, Yannis Philippakis, Jimmy Smith, Jack Bevan, Walter Gervers, Edwin Congreave, enmore theatre
Posted by kluster on January 11, 2011
Ladies love The National. Or so the results of the comprehensive amount of post-event polling we conducted would seem to show. When asked about last Friday and Saturday’s shows at the Enmore Theatre, Sydney females used adjectives such as “phenomenal”, “stunning”, “divine”, “epic” and even this (we think) slightly overzealous word combination: “It was life changing!”
At the other end of the polling spectrum, their male counterparts erred towards the side of reservation. Answering with a less evocative selection including, “impressive”, “refreshing” and this: “A bloody good show.”
Gender-expression differences aside, the results are pretty much the same: The National impressed their Sydney audiences last weekend. Despite a few, self-confessed, between-song-banter fails on the Friday night.
The Brooklyn band took to the stage a little after 9pm, following Sydney band, The Middle East’s strong support slot. Theirs was a big group, with frontman Matt Berninger was flanked by the usual band of brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf, as well as the addition of a mini horn section for two. They opened strongly with ‘Runaway’ before jumping straight into ‘Mistaken For Strangers’ and ‘Anyone’s Ghost’. Pre-show rumours that they would play no material from their recent album, High Violet (2010) proved unfounded – it was strongly represented in the setlist.More...
the national, band, brooklyn, sydney, enmore theatre
Posted by Danni Le Toullec on October 15, 2010
When a band describes themselves as “the movement in Orion's nebula and the slime from a snail journeying across a footpath” and sounds like Jimmy Hendrix and Cream had a glorious love child, you don’t really expect four innocent looking boys from Perth to wander onto the stage barefoot. But looks, as the saying goes, can be deceiving.
With a sound that is as comfortable in 2010 as it would have been in the 60s or 70s, Tame Impala has been going from strength to strength this year. Following the release of InnerSpeaker (released on Modular in June this year), the band supported friends MGMT around the US, also playing their own sold-out shows in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Returning to Australia to play Splendour in the Grass, they were welcomed back with five ARIA award nominations, which include Album of the Year, Best Group and Breakthrough Artist.More...
tame impala, modular, enmore theatre
Posted by KB on March 9, 2010
Having not been among the tens of thousands to have recently attended one of AC/DC’s arena shows, I’m in no position to comment on what it’s like seeing something on that scale. I’ve simply never been to an arena gig, and this is a Pavement review, so anything I could say about seeing AC/DC, if I had indeed seen them, would be irrelevant. Well, almost anything. Because the one thing that I heard so many people say after seeing that band was that every song in the set “was like a closer”. Despite the differences between Pavement and AC/DC - and the differences are huge - I shared the opinion, along with many others, that the same thing could be said about their set.
Perhaps it’s the effect of having waited ten years to see these guys together, in the flesh. I was too young to be there the first time round, or the last time depending on how you look at things, and I figured that was it; I’d never get the chance. But to walk into a sold out Enmore Theatre to the strains of ‘Rattled By the Rush’ was something like a dream come true. It only took the following song to completely break my powers of resistance; upon hearing the opening notes of ‘Grounded’, another Wowee Zowee classic, I deemed myself incapable of reviewing this gig objectively and eschewed my usual practice of tapping down the set list and any random thoughts into a text message to be read later on. More...
pavement, enmore theatre, sydney
Posted by kluster on February 27, 2010
The Enmore Theatre throbbed as a near capacity crowd chanted with nervous anticipation for their idol, “...Lupe, Lupe, Lupe...”, going nuts as the rapper finally arrived after a ridiculously OTT electric guitar solo. He swaggered onto stage in a navy military jacket resplendent with polished brass buttons. When the Chicago native last toured, just over 12 months ago, he brought a six-piece band and all the trimmings with him; this tour however was a slightly more low-key affair, in hip-hop terms anyway. The entourage consisted of DJ Simon Says, a guitarist, a man-mountain of a drummer (who played with two drumsticks in each hand) and what I can only assume was a bodyguard who spent most of the show wandering aimlessly around the stage and occasionally dancing clumsily with cluster of hot-pant clad, squealing groupies on stage right.
iPhones twinkled above the audience as Lupe Fiasco skipped and hopped nimbly around the stage during ‘Shining Down’ with unrivalled energy. The crowd hung on his every word, even the slightest hint of a sly smile eliciting shrieks of delight. During ‘Hip Hop Saved My Life’ Lupe raised his hands up and down over his loyal subjects, resembling a puppet master as the audience rose and fell to the jazzy base line. More...
lupe fiasco, enmore theatre
Posted by KB on December 23, 2009
It’s hard to know what to write about the shows that really matter. I remember reading a review of a White Stripes gig once that summed it up like so: “Best. Gig. Ever.” That was published in the Sydney Morning Herald, so I have every reason to write something more, even though I don’t really want to. In the decade since their inception, and with eight major releases in that time, Animal Collective have shifted from blippy warehouse obscurists to a game changing international outfit. But it wasn’t until Merriwether Post Pavilion dropped at the start of the year that it came into plain sight for so many. The band themselves know it too, and the MPP-heavy set paid its dues to this. A lot of the crowd wouldn’t have been old enough to get into Sung Tongs – this writer barely was himself – but the shot of kaleidoscopic pop, psychedelia, and beautiful electronic noodling they got on the night should be more than enough to have anyone scouring their back catalogue. And tonight really was all about the music.
Animal Collective aren’t really the crowd interaction types, or those that would seek to draw attention to anything other than the joyous, kinaesthesic experiment they've devised as a means presenting their music live. There’s really no need for witty banter or outlandish Patrick Wolf style costuming, unless you count Geologist in all his headlamp wearing, tie-dye sporting splendour.
Reaching around for a highlight is tough, in a set as fluid as the one I saw it’s a mean order to have to pull it apart, as if anything could stand out from such an overwhelming whole. Meanwhile, I was busy: sweat-soaked and in fairly constant movement, juggling drinks and trying vainly to tap the set list into my phone. It wasn’t until somewhere into the ten-minute jam that intermitted the two halves of their avowed classic ‘Fireworks’, that I was able to take some stock. Prior to that we’d been hit with ‘My Girls’, ‘Summertime Clothes’, and an almost dubstep take of ‘Who Could Win a Rabbit?’ But it was the return into the second chorus of ‘Fireworks’ that provided the euphoric moment on a night of sustained euphoria.
Repeat after me: sustained euphoria.
animal collective, enmore theatre
Posted by Danni Le Toullec on November 4, 2009
From backstage at Sydney's Enmore Theatre on Friday night, Paolo Nutini kicked off his sold out show with a cover of Frankie Valli's ‘Can't Take My Eyes Off You' to butter up an adoring, mostly female audience. The crooked grin and soft Scottish accent sealed the deal. Crouched over the microphone like a rag doll, the lyrics to 'These Streets' seemed to break out from his mouth. With his hands in his pockets, and this bizarre posture, Nutini's body language perfectly matched the powerful, raspy voice that you would expect from a weathered troubadour rather than a twenty-two year old lad from Paisely.
The shaggy haired crooner had the audience eating out of his palm as he played through a wide variety of genres, seamlessly transitioning from folk to country, dabbling in swing and pop. There was even a bit of a country hoe-down for 'Lead in my Pencil', which had everyone dancing in their seats and more than a few people wishing they could play spoons. Nutini and his 5-man band set about playing songs from the new Sunny Side Up album and the debut These Streets, using deft harmonies, flawless accapellas and some interesting techniques such as using maracas instead of drumsticks.
The applause and high-pitched squeals for an encore were deafening and Nutini returned to play the song that everyone had been waiting for 'Last Request which was accompanied by a surprisingly good crowd sing-a-long and a standing ovation. Some of the other favourites were Candy, Alloway Grove and Growing Up Beside You.
Check out this photo and more on the Kluster gallery
paolo nutini, enmore theatre, folk, country, swing, pop