Photos from Headless Chickens at the Gaelic
If I wasn't 100% blown away by the Chooks themselves, I was kind of stunned by their punctuality. Ree had told me they were due on at 10.45, and by God they actually were on at 10.45. I'm struggling to reconcile this with the fact that the gig was held in Sydney, where bands just don't run to the scheduled time like that...
First up were Chaingang, who I know nothing about beyond the fact that someone on the Clan Analogue mailing list had mentioned them, and who I still don't know much about except that they sound not a million miles removed from The Grates and they are fucking loud. Especially that chick behind the drumkit, who has clearly studied at the Keith Moon School of Volume.
This was the only crowd shot I got all night, but I kind of had to get it. After all, it seems to have been years since Anna and David were last sighted at anything like this, so I needed some sort of evidence that they still exist.
I have no idea who the second band were, cos the advertising for the gig (such as it's been) was, as far as I could see, completely schtum on who the supports were (the Headless Chickens Myspace was similarly unhelpful), so I never properly got these guys' name. It sounded like "Tennis" when they announced it, but I don't know if that's correct or not... I hope not, cos what a terrible name that would be. Tennis. As for the band themselves, they played a fairly inoffensive, not particularly threatening brand of fairly conventional indie with Evermore-ish type vocals. Still, they had a Microkorg, so I kind of forgave them being nondescript.
And so to the trans-Tasmanites themselves. As I said, I wasn't 100% convinced somehow. Not that I didn't enjoy it or anything like that, cos I did (indeed, I enjoyed some parts immensely), but I somehow wasn't as bowled over by the Chickens as I was kind of hoping I would be... possibly if I were more familiar with more of their stuff I'd have got into it more than I did. Still, I'm not seriously complaining or anything, cos what I did know I enjoyed an awful lot, I'm happy with most of the shots I got of them (you may observe I got a good run of shots from pretty much the front of the stage; for once I just pushed my way in for the best shot), and it has to be said that Fiona MacDonald has aged extremely well.
First up were Chaingang, who I know nothing about beyond the fact that someone on the Clan Analogue mailing list had mentioned them, and who I still don't know much about except that they sound not a million miles removed from The Grates and they are fucking loud. Especially that chick behind the drumkit, who has clearly studied at the Keith Moon School of Volume.
This was the only crowd shot I got all night, but I kind of had to get it. After all, it seems to have been years since Anna and David were last sighted at anything like this, so I needed some sort of evidence that they still exist.
I have no idea who the second band were, cos the advertising for the gig (such as it's been) was, as far as I could see, completely schtum on who the supports were (the Headless Chickens Myspace was similarly unhelpful), so I never properly got these guys' name. It sounded like "Tennis" when they announced it, but I don't know if that's correct or not... I hope not, cos what a terrible name that would be. Tennis. As for the band themselves, they played a fairly inoffensive, not particularly threatening brand of fairly conventional indie with Evermore-ish type vocals. Still, they had a Microkorg, so I kind of forgave them being nondescript.
And so to the trans-Tasmanites themselves. As I said, I wasn't 100% convinced somehow. Not that I didn't enjoy it or anything like that, cos I did (indeed, I enjoyed some parts immensely), but I somehow wasn't as bowled over by the Chickens as I was kind of hoping I would be... possibly if I were more familiar with more of their stuff I'd have got into it more than I did. Still, I'm not seriously complaining or anything, cos what I did know I enjoyed an awful lot, I'm happy with most of the shots I got of them (you may observe I got a good run of shots from pretty much the front of the stage; for once I just pushed my way in for the best shot), and it has to be said that Fiona MacDonald has aged extremely well.