Ah, Snakadaktal. It’s hard not to fall in love with these kids once you get to know their lovely take on dream pop, and I’m sure the night’s sold out crowd would agree with me. In their short career they’ve come out on top in triple j’s Unearthed High competition, co-headlined Push Over festival in Melbourne and were recently announced as openers for The Jezabels’ headline tour in May.
The night opens with local band Archers, who do not disappoint. The sextet produce Six Gallery-feel rock with Explosions In The Sky style riffs, and despite the lack of solid banter they have an overall great set that definitely is worth catching.
Elizabeth Rose, the main opener, is up next. It seems like the concept behind her show is to set the record for the largest amount of sound outputted by one person, because there is never a time where she isn’t singing, playing synth or triggering a sample from her MacBook. Her style is comparable to that of Aphex Twin and Baths with atmospheric dance as the icing on the cake, which really gets people moving (especially during her remix of a Flight Facilities song). Despite doing a hundred things at once (including trying to ignore the wolf whistles and sleazy men hitting on her between songs) her vocals are completely flawless, as if they are the only thing she had to focus on.
Snakadaktal walk on the stage at well past our bedtime and start with “East Of Here”, a new song not yet released. Following this, they trigger the intro of “Wake Up” and proceed to play it to perfection. It looks like each member has differing feelings of playing at such an hour, with one guitarist looking like he wished it was over, and the other having the time of his life.
Following this, a short banter is brought on and includes essentially nothing but compliments from the lead singer to the crowd, including, “You are all so, so nice,” and “You guys are by far the most attractive crowd we’ve seen”. Then, after a song that is “a little bit new”, fan favourite “Air” came on, confronted by cheers and a chorus of singing voices from the crowd.
After playing the entirety of their 2011 released EP and a good three or four brilliant new songs, they reveal their love for electronic music and close with their interpretation of Swedish House Mafia’s “One” which is arguably more danceable than the original.
One of the most incredible things about this band and one that can never be ignored in my eyes is how much they’ve done in their music career, despite being just out of high school. This show just proves to the fans that their dedication to their music and ability to create a flawless headlining set is a very honourable talent to have.
– Tom Gaffney
