Giovedì 21 Gen 2010, 1:46
Wed 20 Jan – The Decemberists, Jack Shit, Bridezilla, Dan Zilber
Another Sydney Festival event last night, this time time at the Beck’s Festival Bar, a big tented area at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. It was a nice open feel (and it helped that it was a fine night), though as a venue it was a bit on the long and narrow side. And you can’t get good rock sound in a semi-open tent, but the Sydney summer vibe counts for a lot.
I only caught the last two songs of local openers Bridezilla. I can’t say that I was fond of their jazz-fusiony ruckus, but I didn’t get to give it a proper chance.
The main act was Oregon folk-rawkers (though I think they often play something more like folk-prog) The Decemberists. The indie college-kid faves have never been to Australia before this tour, so plaid shirts and thick-framed glasses were notable by their crowd presence. The band wisely didn’t try to break through the crowd’s cooler-than-thou shell right from the start: they slid into a suite of storybook tunes, one after another, for the first few songs, as if warning us that this was going to be difficult.