With Laneway Festival’s Melbourne stop all but a hazy memory, the USA’s Divine Fits, along with Melbourne rock and rollers The Delta Riggs, stormed into the Corner hotel Monday night for a stellar evening of music.
The Delta Riggs started by walking on stage, picking up their instruments and leaping into their first track – there was no fumbling around with awkward conversation or getting ready, they just got stuck into it.
They were not only energetic and talented, but they used every element of sound at their disposal – from guitars to a harmonica, and from manipulated vocals to strong bass – to cleverly reach out and tap each incoming audience member on the shoulder.
Everything from the way the band moved, to how each individual member played their instrument was fluid and natural – nothing was at all rigid. It was, for that reason, incredibly sexy.
You could tell these guys are loving life at the moment – and why wouldn’t they be? The band is making leaps and bounds around the Melbourne music scene, and successfully spreading their delicious talent across the country – hell, their music is even getting played in commercials now.
They successfully proved their worth on stage and had a damn good time doing it – what more could you possibly ask for? The Delta Riggs have (deservedly) a bright future ahead of them.
Divine Fits rolled on stage next and from the word go they exuded powerful and compelling music.
Arriving one by one, the DJ had been playing eerie church-like instrumentals that snapped the crowd’s attention and altered the ambience almost indefinitely. Once each band member landed on stage, they added to the peculiar music a modern, yet eclectic spin.
After the ethereal intro the band swung into a string of tracks that was more upbeat and more characteristically ‘Divine Fits’.
The bass was strong – you could feel it fluster every bone in your body (not that uncomfortable rattling that you feel in a dreadful nightclub), and co-frontman Dan Broeckner shared his vocals with Britt Daniel that aided the dynamic and effortless ambience in the room.
The band played with their music, adding and subtracting different moods and compositions as they went on – they teased tunes from an array of music and gave a new life to their already active music.
The timing of every single second of music was faultless – even the tacks that the band had manipulated from the album version seemed to be perfectly paced.
Broeckner was also hilarious between songs – his playful jaunts at regional hatreds (Sydney v Melbourne), and comments (“I’m sweating like a pig, feeling like a cashed up bogan… yeah, in Canada we call them posers”) were appreciated by the audience, and delightfully broke up the mood between songs.
There were also several jabs at Tripe J throughout the night; earlier on Elliot Hammond from the Delta Riggs mentioned that you wouldn’t hear their new song “in the hottest 100 – we weren’t taking enough pingers when we wrote it.”
Then later, when Boeckner received a massive applause after he asked the audience if they liked the song they had just played, he bewilderedly mentioned that the national youth station had suggested that the song wouldn’t be a hit in Australia, so they wouldn’t play it.
The band’s well deserved encore ended with a crowd pleasing ‘Shivers’, distorting the album version with snappy beats and jagged guitar accompanied the melancholy lyrics and another, softer guitar.
Boeckner took over the vocals of the track, and his husky voice aided in the emotion. All of this in conjunction with the epic, drawn out guitar solos brought the song out of its metaphorical shell –quite a spectacular way to end the evening.
