Papa vs Pretty

After the last few times I’ve been at The Ed Castle to cover gigs, I was beginning to lose faith in the place as a venue. The crowd (if you can call them ‘crowd’) was sparse, and the general show vibe took awhile to warm up and really get going. So tonight, when I rocked up at the Currie Street venue, there was a part of me that thought, “You’re really going to do this to yourself again?” … Of course I was.

Tonight was The Ed’s Plus One night, and first up on this evening’s bill were Adelaide’s sunny indie kids The Salvadors. I’ve seen these guys a few times before and came away from their set generally impressed. The last time I’d seen The Salvadors was at Fowlers, where audio problems plagued their entire set – so tonight I enjoyed the band even more since I could actually hear them properly. Keyboardist Cat Connelly was a particular stand out for me, probably because I didn’t quite hear her vocals at all the last time I’d seen her sing live. She was on key and audible enough tonight though, her sweet yet edgy vocals blending in brilliantly amongst the boys. The Salvadors pulled a sizeable crowd, another impressive feat for being the first band on tonight’s line up. It was clear that these guys are well loved locals, with a good portion of the crowd jumping around and singing along with the band as they took us through a set of upbeat tunes reminiscent of Vampire Weekend and Hungry Kids of Hungary.

One thing that I find always has the potential to bring a show down at the Ed is the fact that there’s the beer garden and the front bar area for punters to dissipate out to once a support band has finished. Generally it doesn’t hurt the turn out for the headliners too much, but sometimes the attendance in the main room can be halved because there’s no real announcement of the next band taking the stage. With the usual DJs spinning in the front bar and the jugs of sangria flowing steadily out the back, the vibe at The Ed was much livelier than I’ve seen it in the past few months. So when I headed back into the main room, I was happy to see that the room was almost completely full up.

Up next were the incredibly young looking, The Last Dinosaurs. They didn’t waste time in breaking into an intense set of songs which saw head banging on stage and the beginnings of some sort of indie-hipster mosh down on the floor. It was quite a sight. These lads have had a good run so far, with the success of their EP Back From the Dead seeing them play a number of festival dates as well as their own shows and some pretty impressive support slots (Yannis Phillipakis of Foals remains a fan). The band produced some pretty mature and slick sounds for a group of guys who looked like they should still be sitting their Year 10 exams (the drummer looking like he was up way past his bed time). Unfortunately, the audio crapness that The Ed is well-known for fought against the band, with PA issues and feedback sometimes making the experience a tad unbearable. Lead guitarist Lachlan Caskey was definitely impressive to watch, especially when Honolulu was dropped, and the crowd went nuts once more.

The room emptied quickly once again following the end of The Last Dinosaurs’ set and it wasn’t long before the third band, Papa vs Pretty had signalled their arrival by breaking out into some straight up punk/rock. It was a bit of a surprise, the room wasn’t even half full when they started, and I’m pretty sure most of the people in the room had no idea they’d even finished setting up their gear. This was the kind of vibe that continued throughout their set – the crowd wasn’t really given time to stand back and just sip the band in; instead, we were forced to drink. In the good way, not the “Scull, scull, SCULL!” way. The main thing I noticed about Papa vs Pretty was the fact that they looked like they genuinely enjoyed rocking out on stage. None of this fake stage presence crap you sometimes see from younger bands these days - Thomas Rawle’s presence alone drew the audience in and kept them hooked. With some impressive drums and guitar work, these guys produced a diverse set of tunes – at first I thought I was in for a punk heavy set, but then it would travel into indie-rock territory. The live scene is where these guys clearly are most comfortable, and it showed.

I left The Ed in a good place with the local talent kicking about at the moment. Tonight I saw some fine offerings from Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney – and I was impressed with all three.

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