Birds Of Tokyo @ Thebarton Theatre, 18th November ’16
Wow! The Birds Of Tokyo continue their upward trajectory with another massive show here in Adelaide.
It was a bonus seeing the Birds at the beginning of the tour compared to the other way around. Adelaide can feel aggrieved sometimes because we miss out on a lot of shows but fair to say where the hell were you? To see the black curtain draped across the back and the floor nowhere near full was disappointing.
Nevertheless, the punters that did show got one hell of a show and a chance to catch a first taste of their new album Brace live. I think it was a ballsy move to tour on a album that has only been out for a couple of weeks and judging for the crowd reaction for the most part it seemed like a lot of people still hadn’t bought a copy of the new album.
The show opened with the epic and colossal sounds of Harlequins which ironically opens the album Brace. There’s no denying the anthemic qualities of this harder edged rock tune. The Birds have really stepped up the production of their live shows now and seem to out grown venues like The Gov who used to host these guys on previous tours. Gods followed with these big rock opera sound almost coming across as an Australian version of Muse. It was familiar territory with Broken Bones before Ian Kenny gave the customary “welcome to the show my friends” before powering through another new tune Above/ Below.
A favourite from Universes by way of An Ode To Death went down well with fans singing word for word on this one. Plans featured early in the set as did Silhouettic but the real surprise packets were current single Empire and Catastrophe. That’s a big fuck yeah from me! With so many new tunes in the set I thought the band could have engaged the audience a lot more but that has never really been the hallmark of their show leaving the music to do all the talking.
The band looked genuinely happy to playing in Adelaide and seemed so happy and proud showing off their new album with Discoloured, Brace and set closer Mercy Arms getting an intro to the faithful. One wonders if the gap between Birds Of Tokyo and Karnivool sonically is a lot closer now than ever before? Time will tell.
Lanterns had been given a spruce up with tinges of electronica and Anchor and Wild At Heart seem like set staples these days. It is hard to fault the Birds Of Tokyo, their show is so good in every way both sonically and visually. It will be interesting to see what they do next. Can they top this production? Have we seen their best? So many questions left unanswered and perhaps there were a few clues in the encore. The encore featuring the chanting tones of This Fire and the bold booming rocker Crown left the crowd with plenty to think about on the way home about what they had just experienced.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
