The New Pornographers

People – famous or not – are always capable of surprising you. With a little help, The New Pornographers pulled off one of the most unique moments I’ve ever witnessed last Saturday.

Out of curiosity, I found myself descending the Hi Fi staircase early. This was definitely a good decision, as Brisbane indie popsters Little Scout proved to be one of those rare finds in an opening band – adding their own touch to the night’s proceedings and winning the crowd over in the process. The room was disappointingly empty as they took to the stage, but a few gorgeous notes into their set the room seemed to magically fill. With a frontwoman as cute as her vocal delivery and charisma visibly pouring out from behind the drum kit, the quintet delivered an unexpectedly brilliant prelude for what was to come, deftly mixing up indie folk and synth-driven twee pop into something that wasn’t quite either. Was well worth checking out.

The New Pornographers emerged on-stage to little fan-fair, launching into crowd favourite ‘Sing Me Spanish Techno’ and immediately kicking things off on a high note. Every member of this group is a veteran performer, and I couldn’t imagine any of them looking more at home than they did on the stage. Unfortunately, they might have gotten a little too comfortable, because despite my excitement at the never-ending list of brilliant songs pulled out one after another, I couldn’t help but get the feeling the band were just going through the motions. They gave one hell of a vocal performance, with more or less all band members contributing solidly and the flame-haired Neko Case totally stealing the show, but no matter how great it was to hear her sing the hell out of ‘Mass Romantic’ or ‘Letter From An Occupant,’ even this couldn’t quite shake the rehearsal-space vibe. Despite seemingly genuine compliments for Melbourne as an audience and city murmured between songs, the band still fell a bit short of connecting with their audience – right up until their first encore.

Re-appearing to ‘Challengers,’ Neko was given another chance to shine, and she definitely claimed it. I was sure this was going to be the highlight of the night, until Carl informed everybody that the entire band really wanted to play ‘Myriad Harbour,’ but without Dan present they were going to need a guest vocalist. I think everybody assumed he was joking, but when he matched the crowd’s stunned silence by repeating a two note introduction for minutes on end, we realised he really wasn’t. After an awkward wait, cheers broke out as a figure started moving through the crowd toward the stage. With his jumper still tied around his waist and looking nervous as hell, Andrew was introduced to the crowd. Neko immediately proclaimed him the saviour of Melbourne, whilst Carl just warned him, “Hey Andrew...don’t fuck it up.” They launched into the song, and immediately every single person in the room was on board, clapping and dancing along the way Little Scout had been from the side of the stage all night. A few seconds in, Andrew surprised both band and audience with a pretty great voice, and going solely on the number of times the song’s made it onto youtube already I’d say plenty of people enjoyed it. The crowd chanted Andrew’s name as everybody took a bow – something the band didn’t seem to put out by, with even Neko acknowledging that he wanted it more than them – and Carl presented him with a victory beer. After momentarily disappearing again, the band finished off the night with ‘The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism,’ finishing with the parting words, “Thanks everybody, and thanks to Andrew – you made the night.”

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