By the time I rock up to the venue, the first support act�s already done and gone. The place is reasonably full. Two guitars, bass and drums. Second support band the Camels seem to have a healthy following, though I had great difficulty naming just one song of theirs. They played fairly conventional, straightforward rock. But by gosh (!) they were loud. Loud enough to make more than a handful of drifters and other clueless people like me move away from the front. Don�t know what it is that people saw in them though. Surely they�re not attracted to the Camel�s fashion sense. You know something's amiss when even I am picking on your fashion sense. The one song that did stand out was the porno rock tune �doctors & nurses�. After that, the front man�s ongoing struggle with constantly breaking guitar strings was the second most memorable thing. I don�t know what their fans are seeing in this band at all.
Little Birdy. Fronted by Katy Steele, in a fetching outfit of all black knee high boots, mini skirt and a single leather glove. There may have been a drummer, a guitar player and a bass player somewhere up on that stage as well. Or maybe not. Me and the venue�s spotlight operators tended to focus our attention on the front woman exclusively tonight. And I doubt we were in the minority. If she isn�t one already, she is bound to be a star of Australian music. Don�t think I�ve ever seen so much rock posturing up on this nondescript Surry Hills stage. The girl�s a natural rock star. Still to drop their first album, it�s surprising how many songs are already easily recognisable due to healthy radio support. There are louder tunes, there are quieter tunes, but at the end of the day, generally, there�s no shocking deviation from what they�ve released so far. Her voice was strong and she didn�t overplay the unique vocals angle. The set was over and done with pretty quickly though. Guess when you don't even have an album out yet, you really can't play for much longer without getting into covers.
The Camels didn�t really do it for me, but now I�m looking forward to the album from Little Birdy. No doubt when that drops they�ll be selling out bigger venues.