The atmosphere at 170 Russell, of which we all formerly know as ‘Billboard’, was buzzing from the get go as an eclectic mix of music lovers dribbled in and an array of bucket hats filled the room rapidly.
First off the bat, Pretty Littles, playing to their own hometown crowd Melbourne. They played a humble set and had the crowd engaged and bopping along, intrigued for what was yet to come from the night. Just as the band’s facebook page tells us, the Pretty Littles genre is ‘definitely music’ and after this set it was confirmed that this is absolutely the case.
By the time Boo Seeka were ready to play, the room was reaching capacity and boy it was getting hot in there. The pair strutted on with their surfer style locks and took instant command of the stage and the room with a resounding ‘lax’ vibe that could be felt by all. Their earthy vocal tones and electro prowess were almost so overwhelmingly chill that upon glance around the room, you couldn’t help but notice that everyone was absolutely fixated on the stage, unable to break out of this sort’ve trip-hop-electro trance that we’d all been willingly placed in. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this unique duo is that they only formed in January 2015 and have already toured with the likes of Kim Churchill and of course, Sticky Fingers. The guys themselves seemed shocked more than once throughout their set that the crowd were not only so engaged but also singing and dancing along to their songs. Their set seemed to end almost too soon and then the wait for the big finale begun.
After what felt like hours of pressing wearily against sweaty strangers, the lights went dim and Sticky Fingers marched on, all arms in the air and frontman Dylan brandishing none other than a bottle of red in his right hand. Right from the very second the music began, the entire crowd was dancing for the duration of the set, in fact it was almost impossible not to. They played a variety of upbeat, funky and more laid back tracks from the albums ‘Land of Pleasure’ and ‘Caress Your Soul’. It was hard to ignore the charismatic nature of the entire band but in particular Dylan, who had just about everyone in the room falling in love with him (myself not excluded) more and more as each song went on. A resounding crowd favourite was of course ‘Liquorlip Loaded Gun’ in which almost everyone in the venue grabbed a partner, jumped on their shoulders and screamed at the top of their lungs together, ‘Open up the ocean, jump on in’.
About half way through the set, Dylan almost entirely lost his voice but it was almost a complete nonissue because the power in which he may have lacked vocally, was either made up for through his charisma or the crowd’s participation. That being said, even with a lost voice, his tone was still exceptional. An hour and a half of good vibes, laughs, love and dancing sadly came to and end and it was time for the boys to pack up and head out. But not without one last song of course.
The encore was ‘Australia Street’ which had the crowd screaming ‘I don’t feel afraid from you’ as if it were the soundtrack to the final scene of movie in which the protagonist overcomes his demons and triumphantly marches down the street displaying his new found contentment in life. We were all the protagonist that night, and we all left feeling more content than ever before. What an incredible show, what an incredible night and whoa, Sticky Fingers, what an incredible band.
– words by Alex Nicola De Havilland, photo by Jared Leibowitz.
