How does a warm spring evening situated on the sands of Melbourne’s Birrarung Marr as the adjacent Yarra rows by, beer in hand, and four free hours of national and international live music sound for a Monday night? VICE and Sugar Mountain provided the punters of Melbourne Music Week exactly that.
Hailing from the northern skies of Queensland, Brisbane heroes Blank Realm kickstarted the Noisey Mountain party. The band’s set comprised of tracks old and new as the quartet transfixed an intrigued audience through walls of shoegaze and all-out psychedelic jams.
Melbourne’s homegrown dub-teased duo Home Travel were next to take to the Noisey Mountain stage. Wasting not a minute of their set, the pair beat through hypnotic feet-movers such as ‘Frequent Flyer’. Vocalist Johann Rashid woo’d the crowd with acrobatics on the tall stacks, drawing in every last man who had taken to the tent to watch the performance.
After the sun had finally fallen, Melbourne’s adored DIY punk revivers The UV Race ensured there was an abundance of heat. Spurring the Monday night crowd into a fit of madness, the gang of six tore through a manic set of crowd favourites. The show was not without an infamous striptease from singer Big Poppa, and with the introduction of the sax, The UV Race transported patrons of the riverside big top to the notorious Fun House of Iggy And The Stooges à la the raw punk seventies.
After idly checking out the local talent, it was time for San Francisco’s golden boy of garage buzz, Mikal Cronin, to take to his first Australian stage.
Passing punters shared whispers of, “So who is headlining tonight? I think he plays for Ty Segall?” As it was a free party, it would be remiss of anyone to expect that all were familiar with Cronin’s prolific production. It took about 30 seconds for the 12-string wielding frontman and his band of cronies to harmoniously ooo and silence the audience before diving into the track ‘Is It Alright’ from his debut record.
The Cronin-led quartet then slammed straight into the sixties jingle ‘Situation’, coercing the aforementioned questioning crowd members into moving their feet.
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With the big top alight, Cronin paused, slowing the pace to count in the fan favourite ‘Apathy’. As Cronin crowed “and I run home, lock the door and just zone out”, the amplification of that true San Fran, neo-garage fuzz that the musical prodigy has championed rebounded from every which way, not allowing for a single stationary patron.
The Noisey Mountain crowd was eating out of the palms of the long-haired stage dwellers. Cronin then finally opted for ‘Am I Wrong’, a track from his stellar release this year. Capitalising on his soaring vocal ability, Cronin glided through the more ambiguously penned lyrics of MCII before plunging into a rambunctious blur of psych-meets-garage scuzz rock, with hints of glistening polish emitting from his gorgeous 12-string.
Adding a twist of bittersweet sentiment, Cronin poured some soul into the introductory track of MCII, ‘Weight’. He conveyed sheer honesty that swayed from the downtrodden mopes of “I don’t think I’m ready for the second wave, the weight of seeing through” to triumph. He trumped the post-loss blues, and his voice cracked while asserting “no, be bolder, golden light for miles”. The one bitterly missed omission from the standout track was the majestic keys that utterly personify the Cronin-classic.
‘See It My Way’ witnessed Cronin pleading, “but I’m dying to get along with you” before departing from the limelight and allowing his Californian counterparts to unleash a garage freak-out reminiscent of sixties crash-bangers, The Pretty Things.
Rising from the depth of frizz and fuzz, Cronin introduced the lead single from MCII, ‘Shout It Out’. The moment that the multi-instrumentalist began finger picking the shimmering summer anthem, the audience erupted in gratitude. Cronin tore through the infectious, almost poppy-punk tale of frustration as the audience clapped to the rhythmic beat, bringing the show to a halt as the applause took hold.
Hair covering their eyes and disengaged from the audience, Cronin exposed his raw prowess as the quartet shook the ground with the heavy reverberating ‘Green And Blue’. Smacked by a wall of sonic fuzz and backed by a tribal drumbeat, the gritty track is unlike any other in Cronin’s arsenal, and cracked the bones of every member in the audience. It was the indisputable pinnacle of Noisey Mountain II.
Cronin and his band of Cronies obliterated Monday night at Melbourne Music Week, leaving not a single scratched head remaining as to who Cronin was. He made The Residence his own, rattling like the San Fran basement where he conceived his arsenal of music artistry.
It’s with great hope that Cronin returns to our girt by sea with his garage-infused psychedelic kaleidoscope. His 50-minute set just wasn’t enough.
