The Null Device

Everything seems to be happening at once. This evening, the Gods decided to have some fun with various mortals, and arranged for two excellent live bands to launch their CDs at the same time. First up, I went to the Dandelion Wine "Cat" EP launch at the Corner Hotel, seeing the two support acts (an entertaining guitarist/ranter named Nick, formerly of some outfit called Wild Pumpkins At Midnight), and then an excellent band named The Restless. After this, I managed to see the first song-and-a-bit of Dandelion Wine's set, but missed the rest, leaving to go to the Espy to see Swirl. Though what I saw was most impressive; from the music to the lightshow.

(Incidentally, someone at the Corner has good taste in music; between the first two sets, they played most of Slowdive's Souvlaki (the first time I've heard Slowdive played in public in Australia that I can remember), and in the next break, they played The Paradise Motel's Men Who Loved Her and Portishead's Roads, among other tracks.)

The Swirl show was great too, albeit hampered by the poor acoustics of the Espy's main stage and the less-than-ideal PA. It was sort of a launch for their new album, so they played some tracks off that, along with some intense shoegazer pieces off The Last Unicorn, ending with an intensely climactic rendition of Tailor's Eye. The PA problems muffled the sound a bit, taking a toll on their more polished recent tracks (with their sampled backing tracks), but the wall-of-noise pieces coped admirably; in any case, the crowd (some of whom were hardcore Swirl fans, in the habit of following them around Australia) were really getting into it, and picking up the energy. It was a good show.

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