The Dandy Warhols

Ambling out of the shadows as though appearing out of thin air - is it a roadie hijacking the stage? Is it a pacifist terrorist? No, it’s folk singer ‘Bob’. Sounding like his famous folk muse namesake but looking more like Charlie Manson, Bob is just a man, a guitar and a slightly too loud harmonica all seemingly time-warped straight outta Byron 1969. His well delivered Dylan-esque tunes are a warmly welcomed, aptly eccentric opening to this hopefully odd night. Enhancing the mood halfway through his miniature song list is an equally fine-voiced female duettin’ partner, plus a random (albeit perfectly matching) longhaired ‘n bearded hippy in the audience, clad in multicolour-poncho and twirling up a storm during the calm.

A short break later and despite this evening’s early seven o’clock kickoff, the indie punters could sense a victory for entertainment looming from their hard earned eighty bucks and were up and about for official support act Los Heuvos, which as far as most of us knew were some kind of instrumental / spaghetti western / surf rock sideshow from Queensland. Considering their street-Spanish title loosely translates to “The Balls”, it’s a good thing they also lived up to their name. Basically, Los Heuvos are THE house band for THE trashy beach party. They’re best served in furious half hour pina-colada chunks before any form of tedium might ride in on what’s essentially a well trained one-trick horse, although they do it so well that no one can say whether it’s them or the partygoers that’d cause said party’s spiked inebriation. Another few twists in their bag wouldn’t hurt, but an impressive and infectious beast they are, meaning much air drumming from at least a couple of ushers in the building, plus a bunch of new fans. In contrast to the wintry elements outdoors, by the time Los Heuvos were done, the stage and crowd were well and truly warmed.

Enter the occasional enigma that is The Dandy Warhols. Expectations of their live performance varies depending on interpersonal, historical and geographical references, but ‘twas obvious from the outset that this band is in peak form and this would be one helluva show. Selecting tracks from across their rather lengthy career including a swag of hits, misses, lengthy feedbacks and vocoder psychedelic wigouts, an acoustic solo win-win version of “Every Day Should Be A Holiday”, a truckload of lighting effects and even a resilient bunch of multicoloured balloons, the Dandys played and played and played, gaining raw momentum with each track and addressing us with feeling in between.

A few new songs slipped in along the way, initially well received and offering solid promise for their next release, but it was ripping into light ’n’ tight renditions of “Last Junkie on Earth”, “We Used to Be Friends” and “Cool as Kim Deal” that saw people bouncing with appreciation. With the journey fully amped after ninety epic minutes and lead singer Courtney Taylor pounding a second set of drums with epic vigour, all four band members have us eating out of their busy hands before a double-strength EPIC rendition of “Horse Pills” peels the federation-era paint off The Enmore’s walls and “Bohemian Like You” follows suit. Did I mention it was epic?

As with many artists, what might have been a royal shambles in another time and place turned out to be a huge win for rock ‘n’ roll here. Superb sound, lighting, atmosphere and the music itself were all met with genuine roars of approval within this particular ‘Monkey House’ or ‘Odditorium’ in what can only be described as one of the best shows of the year, or at least one of the most freakin’ e-p-i-c.

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