Poliça’s Laneway Festival sideshow saw a truly interesting and unique live band performing in their absolute prime.
The Townhouses (aka Melbourne local Leigh Hannah) opened the night with his own brand of lush and delicately crafted electronic sounds, mainly from last year’s wonderful Diaspora.
Swapping deftly between keyboard, guitar, laptop, and vocals, Hannah created impressively intricate layers of sound, and even without the guest vocalists that feature prominently on his latest release, his voice more than held it’s own amongst the complex backdrop.
Including some promising new material, the set was brought to a close by ‘Schoenberg’, and was well received by the already sizable Northcote crowd.
With such an intriguing and highly electronic sound on their debut release Give You The Ghost, there was always the question of how Poliça would translate their music to a live setting.
The presence of two drum kits gave an early clue, but it wasn’t until the Minneapolis four-piece strode onto stage and launched into ‘Happy Be Fine’ that it was clear how drastically and wonderfully it would be transformed.
Having two live drummers worked perfectly, providing a driving, pounding, backdrop to every song, with the pair of Ben Ivascu and Drew Christopherson often completing complicated and differing rhythms in tandem.
Bass is also featured much more prominently than on the band’s record, and bassist Chris Bierden cut an energetic and passionate figure on stage while creating inventive lines that proved to be the centrepoint of many of the songs.
Channy Leaneagh is a truly mesmerizing frontwoman, commanding absolute attention in every song. With lovingly distorted vocals, she moves at one with the music, swaying and dancing, feeling every word that she sings.
‘Leading To Death’ began quietly, with just Leaneagh’s delicate vocals and some restrained bass, but it built quickly with duel drum rolls that led to a captivating conclusion.
First single ‘Dark Star’ saw the samples reduced to a bare minimum, replaced by the drums and bass, with fantastic results that was thoroughly enjoyed by the packed and adoring crowd.
While the songs were more than enough for the verging on sold-out room to fall in love with, Leaneagh’s praise for Melbourne definitely helped. Saying that they’d already had a “wonderful day off”, she professed that the city is already “very high on our favourite cities list” even though this is their first ever visit to Australian shores.
Playing nearly every song off their debut record, Poliça also treated the enthusiastic crowd to a couple of new tracks, with Leaneagh saying “I don’t know when we’ll come back so I thought we’d play some new stuff.”
Give You The Ghost stand-out ‘Wandering Star’ was transformed by the two live drummers, and fully benefitted from it. Although possessing a heavier rhythmic backing, Leaneagh’s voice still manages to shine perfectly out of the mix, as it did across the night, offering a hypnotic and entrancing atmosphere.
“You’ve been a wonderful crowd and we’ve had a wonderful time,” says their frontoman before the quartet launched into set-closer ‘Amongster’, which slowly built to an ultimately explosive finish that saw both drummers giving their all in a cathartic and invigorating conclusion.
After a very short encore break, the ensemble returned for an “old one and a new one,” and although playing for well over an hour, it finished far too soon.
Poliça’s live performance went above and beyond their already impressive recorded material, offering something that can only be experienced at a live show. Unique, passionate, and something where every note provided a new and interesting element.
