Broods @ Enmore Theatre 9/7/16

First seen on AMNplify!

A brother-sister duo hailing from New Zealand, Georgia and Caleb Nott as Broods broke into the scene with the single Bridges in 2013, featuring Georgia’s lead vocals and Caleb on production and backing vocals. They went on to release a self-titled EP in early 2014 in anticipation of their debut full-length album Evergreen later that year. Last month, after leaving the fans to fend with just the single Free, sophomore album Conscious dropped. This second full-length album embodies the iconic indie pop electronica hip hop they’ve become known for at festivals and touring with the likes of Ellie Goulding, Haim and Sam Smith. In honour of this most recent release they started the now sold out promotional tour for Conscious at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on Saturday night. The all ages event was sponsored by Play Safe, a NSW government initiative promoting safe sex and education.

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Broods | Photography by Belinda Dipalo

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Celia Pavey, second runner up in The Voice Australia rebranded as Vera Blue and dropped two hit singles followed by the EP Fingertips, supported Broods on this tour. Settle kicked off her set after an intro of atmospheric soprano notes overlayed with synths. This new project incorporates Celia’s country-influenced ethereal folk singing style with electronic rhythms. The intro to Turn had a group of girls in the crowd imposing the lyrics from Jojo’s Leave over the top. That was until Celia began to sing a very different melody.
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She has these floating hand movements very like Florence Welch but with not quite the same execution. It was unfortunately quite distracting to watch when she was singing. Acoustic guitar in hand, Celia played and sang through Patterns, which had the clearest annunciation of all her songs. The crowd really enjoyed that one but when she introduced the Triple J Like a Version cover of Jack Garratt’s Breathe Life, her fans in the audience knew what to expect and anticipatory cheers exploded. That track went off. It was easily the best received song in her whole set list. She closed out with Hold, her oldest and best known single, ending her set on a high note, ready for Broods to take over.

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Broods | Photography by Belinda Dipalo

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After an unusually long pause between playlists, John Farnam’s The Voice came on and the majority of the audience were chanting the lyrics to the chorus, not knowing the verses well and not really able to hear Mr Farnham very well. The haters were relieved when Broods’ intro music cut off Farnham and the crowd. A huge cheer went up as Camille and Jono took their places either side of Caleb’s very tall setup. Caleb joined them soon after and Georgia took the stage in a storm of black sequins and long flying fringing. After powering through the first two tracks in the setlist, the Sydney audience got their obligatory acknowledgement from Georgia. Broods aren’t particularly into wasting much time on speeches but Bedroom Door?? received a special introduction as being a song with huge personal significance that always makes Georgia cry.
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In the middle of the show, the band left the stage, Caleb was handed an acoustic guitar and there was a very intimate little acoustic set. After making a blunder towards the end of All of Your Glory, Georgia promised to make it up to the audience by bringing out a very close friend of theirs, causing an overenthusiastic eruption of cheers. “You don’t even know who I’m talking about! You’ve got no idea…” Georgia exclaimed, a little bit bemused. Fellow musician and co-writer Jarryd James joined them on stage to play 1000x, a very new track that, in such an intimate setting, really showcased the amazing harmonies of Georgia and Jarryd’s combined voices. The acoustic portion finished up with Sleep Baby Sleep, the stage went dark as everyone exited.

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Broods | Photography by Belinda Dipalo

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From this point onwards, the show took an unquestionably upbeat turn. Camille came out and played some cords on the keyboard in anticipation of Caleb and Georgia re-joining the stage. They had changed from their sombre black outfits to shades of ivory. After smashing Recovery – one of the most popular tracks from Conscious – out of the park, Georgia cheekily told us, “We’ve symbolically changed our outfits because now…it’s time to party!” What followed was nothing short of a marathon of tracks from a thorough cross-section of Broods’ entire discography.
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As a frontwoman, Georgia Nott was a powerhouse, never standing still, always dancing. She has this amazing ability to be both lost in her music and present in the venue, checking in with the crowd. As one half of the duo, she embodied audience engagement while Caleb played puppet master from the high riser behind her, giving everyone the lush layers of music to enjoy.
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Check out Belinda’s full gallery here!
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Connect with Broods!

Official Website – Twitter – Facebook – YouTube

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Set list:

Intro
Conscious
Hold the Line
Every Time
Never Gonna Change
Bedroom Door
Freak of Nature
All of Your Glory (Acoustic)
1000x (Acoustic, special guest Jarryd James)
Sleep Baby Sleep (Acoustic)
Recovery
Are You Home?
Heart Lines
Pretty Thing
LAF
We Had Everything
Mother and Father
Free
Encore- Four Walls (Piano)
Bridges
Couldn’t Believe

The Bennies @ UOW Uni Bar 8/7/16 (Live Review)

First seen at AMNplify.

Some bands don’t want to subscribe to a genre, The Bennies on the other hand can’t seem to make up their mind. They’ve been taking their unique blend of “Psychedelic Reggae Ska Doom Metal Punk Rock from Hell” to all corners of Australia in a massive 27 dates over 40 days to promote the recent release of their third album, Wisdom Machine. With Anty taking care of vocals and korg, Jules on the guitar, Bowie drumming and Craig covering the bass, you won’t be bored at one of their shows. Friday night saw them in University of Wollongong’s Uni Bar with local punk rock trio Kaleidoscope alongside the tour’s special guests, Axe Girl and Clowns.

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The Bennies – photo by Britt Andrews Photography

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Kaleidoscope kicked off a full lineup, punching out a half hour set of tracks very reminiscent of late 90s garage punk. Instrumental was definitely their strong point with the three South Coast locals head banging long dreads and defiantly shouting their lyrics to be heard over the rolling melodies of guitar and bass. Mayalla was the standout track from their set.

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Kaleidoscope – photo by Britt Andrews Photography

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Originating from Perth, aka the other side of the world, Axe Girl’s distinctly brighter, fast-paced pop punk, wasn’t exactly what the crowd was expecting. However, by the time the set was over, many were declaring “I’ve never heard of them before but they were fucking awesome”.

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Axe Girl | Photography by Britt Andrews

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Their set started out slow bass-heavy with rumbling guitar riffs and it only accelerated from there, accented by the off-centre, explosive feminine vocals of Axe, reminiscent of Metric’s Emily Haines or Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. From the second track of their set onwards, they were winning over the crowd. Mid-way through Axe picked up a glittering red guitar and added some welcome layers to their melodic full sound. With her blue tipped fly away hair, blue eye shadow, star spangled leggings, and endless bounds of energy, manic pixie Axe is definitely the epicentre of the group. On the last track, they even threw in some screams, a great way to transition to Clowns’ music.
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Clowns’ frontman Stevie came out to three jamming band mates, declared the song was about those few times why it’s bad to take drugs and was crowd surfing by the end of the second chorus. A-rhythmic short fast loud songs interspersed throughout the set list. Clowns know how to build a song with an apex of intensity. Early on in the set they debuted a new song with a ripping guitar intro (didn’t tell us the name though). Stevie gleefully staring into the pit of writhing punters. If your dream was to crowd surf, Clowns would be the band to make that happen. They’ve got audience engagement down to a science.

They were absolutely unwilling to let any silence into their whole set from the moment they entered the stage to the time they left.

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Clowns | Photography by Britt Andrews

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Jared King aka Goon’s guitar string snapped mid-song and threw off the rest of the band. Apparently they’d never fucked up a song that badly before and Stevie joked that would be his last show with them. “Does anyone know any guitarists looking to rock with the Clowns?” Regardless, they went back, fixed it up and finished out with aplomb. The pinnacle of their set was when Stevie climbed up to the top of two speaker stacks and jumped off to be caught by the ecstatic clump of fans several metres below.
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To give you an idea of The Bennies set you need to know this, elicit substances consumed on stage sets the tone for the rest of the evening. Puffing on a joint in between lyrics, Anty was barely in one place for longer than a second, at one point flapping his arms like he was about to fly away. Right from the start the set was supercharged reggae ska rock. Axe came on and shouted out a verse from Heavy Disco. She and Anty shared some adorable in-joke choreography to a synth percussive accent in the track. They also invited Stevie of Clowns back to lend his vocals to Corruption.

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The Bennies featuring Axe Girl | Photography by Britt Andrews

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The chemistry between these four blokes is incredible to behold. At one point, Anty lovingly stroked the hair behind Craig’s ears while he continued to shred the bass. Throughout the set they took the time to feature each other. Craig demolished a particularly compelling bass solo in Acid on Me Brain. Even though Anty took a break in My Bike to get the audience involved in the lyrics, the highlight was him, Craig and Jules sitting on the stage like good little school kids watching Bowie thrash his drum kit in a killer solo. Jules had some amazing moments to shine all night long with every melody intricate yet catchy, a standout example being the intro to Anywhere You Wanna Go. Anty, Jules and Craig’s voices could be heard in different parts of each song.

The final few tracks took a decidedly theatrical turn with Party Till I Die (Or Die Trying) and Corruption – reverb everywhere, slow, thick and greasy bass, guitars, everything really, punctuated by painstakingly screamed lyrics.

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The Bennies | Photography by Britt Andrews

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They made you work for the bridge of Party Machine: everyone’s favourite line to shout over and over, “One part party, one part machine!” The final message to us before closing out with Knights Forever was “Make slow changes with massive outcomes by being nice to each other”. Telling absurd stories in their songs makes people comfortable to behave however they want. Perhaps that’s why there were shoes flying everywhere the whole night (and some dejected looking patrons missing half their footwear at the end of the night).

If anyone ever said smoking too much weed makes you complacent and lazy, they haven’t seen The Bennies live. These guys will stop at nothing to get every single person moving and screaming.
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Check out Britt’s full gallery HERE

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Connect with The Bennies!

Official Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram

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Set list:
Heavy Reggae
Detroit Rock Ciggies
What’s Ya Fucken Problem?
Heavy Disco
Highrider
Acid
Sensi Mi
My Bike
Anywhere
Burnout City
Party Till I Die
Corruption
Party Machine
Knights Forever

TEDxYouth @ Sydney Opera House 25/05/16 (Live Review)

First seen on Amnplify here

TEDxSydney and TEDxYouth are events held in tandem, occupying the Concert Hall and the Joan Sutherland theatre respectively at Sydney Opera House. The mission for any TEDx event is to nurture and spread powerful ideas. These ideas can take on many forms, most noteably speeches but also performances, music, food and so on. TEDxSydney 2016 is the largest TEDx event to-date with an estimated 4,500 people in attendance and more than 500 people on the ground and working behind the scenes to make it happen. TEDx lacks political, economical or religious agenda and no TEDx event is the same as they are all community-driven and independently developed under a free license. This year’s event theme was that of “together”; Edwina Throsby, Head of Curation and host for the first session cited the best ideas as “products of conversation and collaboration”.
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Photo: Katie Barget | TEDxSydney

Each event borrowed from the other (TEDxYouth relying perhaps more heavily on TEDxSydney) by simulcasting a live stream of the speakers from each hall. One of the ten films from the 2016 TEDxSydney Film Program punctuated each speech transition. This year, TEDxYouth@Sydney upgraded from the Opera House’s Drama Theatre to the Joan Sutherland theatre, making up an audience of about 2,500 young minds. Created by young people and intended for young people’s ears and eyes, TEDxYouth brings together bright young thinkers and big new ideas to inspire the next generation.
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Photo: Katie Barget | TEDxSydney

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As always, the event began with acknowledging the traditional custodians of Sydney Harbour: the Birrabirragal band of the Eora people. TEDxSydney went one further with a performance from Matthew Doyle welcoming the audience to this country. The first session, which kicked off with a performance from Tralala Blip. This five piece electronic outfit comprised of three members with intellectual disabilities who contribute every bit as much as their fellow musicians. Backed by gorgeous graphics on the screen behind them, Tralala Blip delicately and passionately expressed themselves through their most recent singles, Title and Title. They make a wonderful example of collaboration and it’s refreshing to hear from voices that are usually silenced, literally.
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Photo: Gary Compton | TEDxSydney

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The first speaker was Tara Winkler, founder of Cambodian Children’s Trust. In her speech she fervently detailed the painful realisations about residential housing institutions around the world, specifically that of children’s orphanages in Cambodia (outlawed in Australia, the UK and USA). Tara persuaded both audiences through a retelling of her experiences – of the orphanage she volunteered at as a tourist in 2006(?), of discovering its corruptions within, of finding that most of the children weren’t in fact orphans and that voluntourism is a hideous industry fuelled by the very people who think they are helping it. The Cambodian Children’s Trust is her solution. It aims to reunite children with their families, finding them stable income and support to raise them, or finding foster families for the true orphans in Cambodia.

Jordan Nguyen followed in the simulcast from the Concert Hall. He’s doing some fascinating work with his social business Psykinetic teaming with Humense to create virtual reality copies of people. These copies have profound implications: being able to copy some of the greatest minds – Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk were examples he cited – or loved ones. He seriously considered the possibility of copying his grandfather, who passed away when he was still a child, if the technology had been available then. After presenting this potentiality to his mother, Jordan was faced with the ethical dilemma of these copies effectively forcing people to relive the loss. Evidently there is more research to be done on the subject. The first short film, a documentary on Being a Robot Usher by Ian Williamson and Russ Tucker, followed this speech. This short film was a standout to me, showing how technology might shape the experience of going to a live event. The film was both poignant and humorous, with clips showing interviews with human ushers we could recognise from outside.

TEDxYouth was then treated to yet another live stream, this time a performance from Kirin J Callinan. The first song was a surprising clash of electronic and guitar with Kirin shouting incongruous lyrics, the only stand out of which was, “in China!” The guitar work was intricate and transfixing, even if there was a little unnecessary use of effects pedals. The next song Kirin traded his electric guitar for an acoustic, which he failed to plug in. Kirin proceeded to serenade the Concert Hall away from any semblance of mic. Much of his performance was utterly lost on the TEDxYouth audience who was plunged into utter silence (soon filled with awkward laughter). This song devolved into what could only have been a skit. Part of the acoustic guitar was lost inside its body and Kirin, soon aided by first one then another stagehand, would shake the guitar overhead vigorously. This lasted for the remainder of his allotted time on stage (we could see the clock ticking away) and then exactly as the clock ran out the guitar part was found and Kirin left the stage, somewhat put out.
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Photo: Gary Compton | TEDxSydney

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I have no idea what kind of point he was trying to make but, in keeping with TEDxSydney’s theme, he brought together three people briefly on stage and united two audiences in laughter at his antics.

The next speaker, also simulcast from the Concert Hall, was Kelli Jean Drinkwater, an artist, supermodel and “fat activist”. Her speech was one of the most resonant of the day, inspiring a huge reaction on social media and in the audiences. Highlights for me included her notion of “claiming space for [her]self” and her retelling of her artist’s practice. Kelli engages in activities typically thought to be “non-fat”, inviting other fat people to join her and then making art about it. (Pictures of some of her sculptures and photographs were shown overhead while she spoke.) A noteworthy activity she participated in was a “fat” ballet called Nothing to Lose! Kerri’s main message was to stop the moral panic associated with fear of fat; the diet industry prevents people’s ability to “make peace” with their bodies.

For the first time in this daylong event, a person finally addressed the TEDxYouth audience on the stage of the Joan Sutherland theatre. Jenny Anagnostopolous from the curation team officially welcomed us and introduced speaker Jodi Rowley. Jodi is a conservation biologist at the Australian Museum with a passion for amphibians. She detailed the impact of losing frogs on their surrounding ecosystems and the environment at large. Jodi led a team in Cambodia to discover and name 29 new species of frogs. She implored us to save the frogs however provided very little instruction for how to do that.

The second live speaker for TEDxYouth was cross-disciplinary artist Emily Parsons-Lord. Emily told us all about her practice, which focuses on air in a way that allows herself and her audience to “picture” it in its plurality: from a small breath to something as big as the whole planet. She has recreated air from various long ago time periods as well as “future” air; a human-made combination of gases that is much heavier than the air we currently breathe and has many implications on the future as far as climate change is concerned. Emily’s speech inspired me to consider this basic phenomenon that facilitates life, and the ways in which we take it for granted.

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Photo: Saidie Daher | TEDxSydney

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Session One closed with a two-track performance from Arab-Australian singer, WAFIA, to my absolute delight. Supported by Thomas Dean on a gorgeous grand piano, WAFIA sang her hit single Heartburn in a beautiful contra-alto. Stripped of its usual electronic enhancements, the song was an intimate new experience throwing emphasis on the sincerity to her voice. She then debuted a collab called Window Seat with Thomas, who leant his voice to the second verse. Their harmonies on the second chorus were an irresistible blend of rich tenor and light, girlish notes.

Other standout speakers include Stanislava Pinchuk (proposed the idea of trading custom tattoos for independently determined value like clothes, dinner out or a roadtrip) and Sandra Garrido (explored the reason why we listen to sad music from a psychological perspective).

TEDxYouth is an action-packed day full of huge ideas, good music and humour. Sydney Opera House is a splendid venue to host such a program both in the size of the ideas presented and the capacity of people there to witness these ideas. Next year I recommend going to the TEDxSydney program just to minimise the amount of time watching people present on a simulcast. You can catch the full program of speakers and films on the TEDxSydney YouTube channel!
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Connect with TEDxYouth!
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Official Website
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Facebook
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Instagram
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Snapchat: @tedxyouthsydney

All images sourced from the official TEDxSydney Flickr account under a Creative Commons license.

Little May @ UOW Uni Bar – Thursday 5 April 2016 (Live Review)

First posted on Amnplify here.

The Sydney-based indie/folk trio kicked off their Australian album tour at University of Wollongong’s Uni Bar. For the Company is their debut LP and was released in late October last year. After opening for the likes of Dallas Green of City and Color, they are headlining their own tour with a range of dates across the nation. Liz Drummond, Annie Hamilton and Hannah Field began their musical journey together as a covers band without the Little May title, testing out their original songs on pub crowds as though they were also covers. Drummer Cat Hunter and bassist Mark Harding fill out their sound from quiet folk to a sort of indie rock.

Liz Drummond, Little May – photo by Josh Groom