Red Riders,

When music gets your toes tapping, torso revolving, shoulders jerking, legs twisting, arms flailing, neck bouncing and fingers playing the air keyboard: you know it’s doing something very right.

Whilst swiftly filing into the sticky-floored, musty smelling and homely feeling Annandale Hotel, Teenagers in Tokyo were wrapping up their set. I caught ‘End It Tonight’ mid-way through, and from this point I was able to note a few things. The ladies play well, dress well and made many dance well. They have a catchy, affectionate and almost nineties pop sound, which seemed slightly avant-garde – whilst everyone is still hung up on the eighties, they’re musically moving into the era of beloved butterfly clips, adidas windpants and pushpops. Yesss!

Seeing The Ghosts brought on a case of recurring emotions. The last time I saw The Ghosts take to the stage, I was impressed by the level of confidence they had gained since the last time I had seen them, and again I was impressed. They appear to immerse themselves in their music so much so that they radiate an energy that is contagious to most present. They all had their own little act down: each member had their own subtle but noticeable individual style in which they played, which cleverly worked and caused minimal distraction from their tunes. Their fast-paced songs were much stronger and more developed than the ones with a slower tempo. The slower songs at times seemed like mere fill-ins until the next fast-paced song. At times I got a bit distracted and wasn’t feeling it, but judging by the applause they received, it seems that I may have been one of the few who didn’t.

While chilling and playing thumb wars until Red Riders came on, one thing was noted as the crowd anxiously filed into the main room: there were fewer hipsters and more of the norm. To me that was no surprise, it all made sense; they’ve been touring whorishly about the place for the past six months, tonight their show sold out a day in advance, one of their babies sat at #96 on the JJJ Hottest 100 Countdown and their myspace has had over 55,000 hits. And this was their first headline show in quite sometime – they were no longer the bridesmaid: they were the shit-hot bride.

‘C’mon’ was the first song played, indicating that their set formula of ‘open with ‘C’mon’, close with ‘In My Sleep’ and play a collage of tunes from ‘The Plan A’ and ‘Replica Replica’ in between, was again to remain in place here.

As they played heart-on-your-sleeve, danceable indie rock with flair of unidentifiable zing, a movement spread across the sea of people…it was the movement of dance.

It wasn’t just the crowd that shook their hips, all members seemed to be grooving in some way of form, with co-leading man Alex obviously having some form of professional dance training, for his air punches were delivered right on time.

As the final mic stand was knocked down and the last instrument tossed onto the ground, a roar of cheer caused the band to come back for an encore of ‘Daylight’, but their set was so tight and concentrated, it was unnecessary.

One thing can be guaranteed when seeing Red Riders: you won’t be the only fool dancing.

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