A few blocks away, Scout Niblett was playing in Australia for the first time. But I felt obliged to see Sonic Animation play out tonight instead.
Big Day Out '01
Homebake '01
Big Day Out '02
Reality by Deception album launch @ Metro '02
Homebake '02
"freaky highway" single launch @ Gaelic '03
Big Day Out '04
Defective Perspective album launch @ Gaelic '04
Bugger Off tour @ Metro '05
So this is the ninth and possibly final time I'll be seeing these silly buggers play out. I think I love them. Oh, I really do.
By the time I got there, the place was already filling up quite nicely. I was somewhat surprised, considering the disappointing turn out at the last few shows at the Gaelic Club.
First group Soma Rasa got a much better reception than the last time I caught them. The crowd was already bored and restless beforehand and were willing to get down on the dance floor and get silly. One guy on turntables and various other technologies, one on drum kit, and one mc up front hosting and toasting the party vibe. The dance floor got into action early. Think the band may have friends in the audience luring people on to the dance floor too. Either that, or some guys got drunk before the music's even started earlier this evening and are now taunting people sitting down to get up and get dancing.
Funky party breaks, at one point meshing up the Freestylers to some New Zealand hip-hop to a big, stomping beat on the drum kit. They had the crowd in their hands with some simple and silly call and response stuff.
Then a dj whose name I didn't catch played out some bass heavy breaks numbers before finishing his set on some old crowd favourites like old Prodigy tracks that had the whole place cheering. Cheap trick, but still sort of neat.
Sonic Animation, again with the mysterious extra girl in the group, and no more fooling around with guitars. Songs as far as I can tell mainly from the last three album and none from the first one. Damn. It wasn't until deep into their set when "theophilus thistler" came on that Rob Rollie and Theo the wacky yellow and blue dancing furballs got up on stage. They didn't hang around for too long though.
At one point in the show lead boy Rupert stopped proceedings to present to drummer boy Adrian the little framed plaque/award they received for their double gold or platinum album Orchid For The Afterworld. There were hugs on stage, there were hugs in the audience, people were happy and sad and emotional. There was definitely something very special going on that night.
After a double encore, they finished off with "rocktronica" playing in the background while all three left the machines to go shake hands and share hugs with the front row.