It was pretty apparent that people had come to the Workers Club for Animaux and Animaux alone. The launch sold out a week prior, but the band room was sparsely filled until just before the headline act.
Opening the night was Ghost Orkid, who are impossible to nut into a genre. At times, they come across as a synth prog-rock band, but their next track could be a dense funk groove. Drummer Anthony Murray navigated sharp hip-hop beats with ease and bassist Nick Ohlson locked in tightly. Vocalist Matt Kelly wailed through a huge chain of vocal effects which were surprisingly effective live.
The crowd had begun to filter through when the eight members of Velma Grove took the stage. They immediately began having an unashamedly good time belting out a series of well written songs on a great spread of instruments. The banjo, violin, mouth harp, French horn and trumpet places their sound somewhere between an early Augie March and a late The Middle East. Sadly, this was the last gig for half of the band. However, a lot of people will be very interested to hear where a new line up takes them.
By the time Velma Grove had wrapped up, the room was at capacity. Animaux were always going to bring their own crowd. This is the band that pulled over 200 punters for every night of their residency at The Evelyn earlier this year. They have the kind of local fan base that other bands dream of and they know exactly how to work them.
Front woman Alex Lahey began pulling shapes from the very beginning, something she’s become very proficient at in the last year. With an increase in interest in the band, their stage presence has blown up too. It took only a couple of songs before the crowd was lifted into a frenzy. Before the halfway point, one particular crowd member (you know who you are) was swinging the last of his Melbourne Bitter long neck above his dreadlocked head, spraying the immediate vicinity in a fine, amber mist.
The band’s performance peaked a number of times throughout the night, notably with ‘Turn It Up’. Will Base punched out a sharp slap-pop bass line while Lahey, Alex Woolford and Ollie Whitehead dug into a sharp hook on the brassware.
Towards the end of the set, Animaux had changed the climate of the band room by at least five degrees and 30% humidity. Those with glasses could barely see. The air was thick and damp when they closed their set with the new single, ‘Alaska’.
While not as punchy or funky as the rest of their set, ‘Alaska’ is definitely radio-friendly. It sees the band delve into careful pop songwriting and experiment with a long, slow build up. By the time the song had crescendoed into its swelling finale, the stage was swamped by some of the drunker fans. ‘
Don’t be surprised when this track places in next January’s Hottest 100. The song was worked on by Roscoe James Irwin (The Cat Empire, The Bamboos) and is already the soundtrack for Triple J’s weather report.
For their final encore, they threw down an energetic version of the crowd favourite ‘Questions and Exclamation Marks’. The audience soaked up the last of their beers and moved out into the cool night to discover how damn hot that room had gotten.
