29/08/2003 @ the Metro
Gerling
Decoder Ring
Bird Blobs
i think i may be getting too old for these concerts. all these young people getting so excited and bouncing around. i just wanna sit back and enjoy the music. but damn! i've commented on this more than once before. the metro's sound system is getting too loud for my poor old ears. during the gig i found myself worrying about hearing damage and wishing i'd brought something with better sound insulation than my walkman's earphones.
it's too cold up the back! the music's too loud! turn on them damn lights! where's my cardigan?! settle down you damn kids! back in my day, we danced to Gerling! i'm too old and frail. i'll come back to finish this review another day.
promise.
(my long delayed review)
i wasn't cleared to go until the eleventh hour, so worried that the gig would sell out, i rocked up early. i rocked up to the venue earlier than i've ever been before. so early, the lights were still on and people working for Decoder Ring are still setting up their rolls of old film stock and setting out the tables for t shirts and cds.
first support, Melbourne heavy rockers Bird Blobs. shit name, even shittier band. what's a bird blob anyway? are they talking about bird shit or what? so they set out to be shit in the first place? no, they weren't that shit. i've seen worse. but their 40 minute set weren't anything special either. in fact, there wasn't anything distinctive i could recall about them.
Bird Blobs, one and a half stars.
Sydney's own Decoder Ring. like Death In Vegas, but cheaper. and some would argue, better. been meaning to see these guys since late last year. the set kicked off to a fantastic start with a three in a row of totally stomping numbers. new song/ welcome shoppers/ colossus, if i remember correctly. the opening song was so powerful, i couldn't keep sitting down. it was just wrong to be sitting through something like that! in fact, the opening three songs were so good, the rest of their set sort of left me... i don't know, disappointed doesn't feel like the right word. i don't know what do say. did they climax too early? the rest of the set failed to get back to those early levels of power, energy and brilliance. there's a lot more of that Death In Vegas style let-the-music-do-the-talking thing going on. that same long rock jam with touches of electronics. the spotlight never shorn brightly on these instrumental rockers who chose to refrain from talking to the audience throughout the night. and the background visuals, i dig. so after the first three songs, i was left in limbo, very interested in what they'd do next, blown away by their opening, disappointed in not being able to see clearly what was going on on stage, dig the visuals, thought the energy levels weren't enough to really keep me standing, i was probably blocking a few people on the steps behind me, but just in case they came good again i didn't want to have to sit down and get up again... overall? good enough, i suppose. i was expecting too much. i love their debut self titled album of 2002.
Decoder Ring, three stars.
got on down to the floor for Gerling. things were running ahead of schedule. a nice change from some of the other gigs we've been to. (ahem, uni gigs, ahem.) it seems to me very silly and sort of funny that we go with that mysterious girl called bec but we were practically never together. the metro's got curtains across their stage these days. my guess is its there to cover up the fact that they're not really doing anything and are just slacking off and stalling to make it seem like a long and worthwhile gig at the end of the night.
the first time i ever saw gerling play was a coupe of years ago, early on in the day on the homebake main stage. "when young terrorists..." just came out and they began with a robot voiceover telling us "shut up and dance you motherfuckers!" back then, when the crowd shouted for them to do some of the rock tracks off the "children..." album, they'd refuse. my, how things have changed. for the worse, as far as i am concerned. i by far prefer gerling the quirky rocking dance group to gerling the just-another-nu-punk-rock group. or whatever that genre is called these days. i wasn't really feeling for any of the new songs. maybe i'm just getting too old, standing there slightly worried about hearing damage and secretly glad that i was next to an older couple instead of some overly excited young moshing kids.
(gee, i'm a major boring fuck, aren't i? it all turned sometime between seeing LTJ Bukem and Death In Vegas. i think i was being stupid and dancing my arse off up against the speaker stack to Bukem's support, japan's Makoto, and i remember it was like smooth and groovy melodic drum'n bass. yet at the same time, it was like i was being shot in the head repeatedly with a nail gun. maybe i was mentally traumatised and since then i've been whining about metro's and other places' sound systems being too loud and i've been buying Diana Krall cds and wanting to go see Abby Dobson play in little venues! will i be cured and fully recovered come music festival season?)
so i wasn't really feeling for gerling's new songs and new punk attitudes. the stuff off the "young terrorists" album was what i'm really into and there wasn't enough of that tonight. despite all that, they still manage to put on a reasonably good show. "who's your daddy" was a new track that i really dig. didn't sound as good live though, i thought. but got to love it for being such a gritty, smutty, dirty song, yet still managing to sneak in a reference to playing scrabble. wicked.
overall? it wasn't the best gig i've ever seen them play, i reckon. probably just me not digging their new direction too much.
Gerling, three and a half stars tonight.
(its a delayed gig review, that also happens to be very long.)
back