Gallery, ReviewDitch This MagazineJanuary 19, 2020gallery, live, melbourne, Gallery, review, Sarah Rix, CHAI, Pond, Festival Hall, Mac DeMarco

Mac DeMarco + Pond + CHAI @ Festival Hall 18-01-19

Gallery, ReviewDitch This MagazineJanuary 19, 2020gallery, live, melbourne, Gallery, review, Sarah Rix, CHAI, Pond, Festival Hall, Mac DeMarco

photos : Sarah Rix (@sarahrix) / words: Maddie Vlismas

Review

“… an amazingly talented musician, whilst possessing the charisma and lightness of heart of a court jester.”

CHAI are here to completely change the way you think of the word ‘cute’. While their matching pigtails, pink outfits and adorable dance moves absolutely scream kawaii, the main takeaway is that these girls rock. I don’t know if you’ve ever had four Japanese girls screaming at the top of their lungs in their native tongue at you, but it sounds pretty incredible.

The juxtaposition of the overall ‘cuteness’ of Japanese culture mixed with heavy synths, a driving bass line and energetic drums should be confusing, but all I can think through their entire set is ‘fuck yeah’. I’m so goddamn happy that bands like this exist to challenge my very mainstream alt. indie tastebuds.

Their music is undoubtably punk, albeit pop-punk, but incredibly powerful. It’s aggressive, but in no way threatening at all. There’s no way you could be unhappy while watching CHAI having the time of their lives.

Unfortunately my 5+ years of Japanese language studies in high school are no match for CHAI, so it’s doubtful anyone else in the crowd understands what’s being said either, but it doesn’t matter. Their gentle voices are strengthened in harmonies, and they communicate expertly in the most universal language of all: music.

Although I’ve seen Pond live before, I’ve never actually seen them such close proximity. The last time was at Splendour and I was just shy of a million miles from the stage. Now, I can actually see front man Nick Allbrook’s frenetic, Jagger-esque moves and it adds a whole other layer of experience. He is truly a full-body dancer in that no limb is left unused and I can absolutely respect that. They launch into the classic ‘Sweep Me off My Feet’ and the crowd completely eats it up.

Live, Pond are even more intense than usual-everything seems amped up to 300%. Vocals are almost as impossible to understand as CHAI’s were, but this time it’s because the lyrics kind of don’t matter, it’s how they sound that does. How does it sound you might ask? The best I can do is: if you took LSD in outer space.

Allbrook gallivants around the stage, completely commanding the audience. They are an absolute trip of distorted sounds and echoes, the instructors of our musical trance-like experience. The drums are thumping, the bass is thick and the vocals are bellowing.

Mac DeMarco is… Honestly, I have no idea. He seems to walk this incredibly unusual line of being an amazingly talented musician, whilst possessing the charisma and lightness of heart of a court jester. He’s become an unofficial spokesperson of the 420 movement, but he’s also so much more than that!

My deep musings are interrupted as Mac walks onstage wearing a bucket hat, baggy jeans, a shirt that very much resembles that of Bert and Ernie and his signature gap-toothed smile. He urges us to have a “peaceful, hydrated and respectful evening” before launching in to the crowd favourite “One The Level”.

After some cruisy, new tunes, he assures us that it’s time to kick things up a notch, “so if you’d like to shake yo ass, please do,”. The beachy, fun, Hawaiian sounding guitar licks contrast the honest and strangely mature themes expressed in the lyrics. He then pays a string of favs including ‘Ode to Viceroy’, ‘Salad Days’ and ‘This Old Dog’ before letting us know “I’m about to do something a bit weird,” but really, how weird could it be?

Mac’s dancing is like if a dinosaur was also an embarrassing dad… It’s so quintessentially Mac, and he undoubtably makes it cool. His band really are the perfect compliment to his antics, and they fire back with just as much banter as the man himself. My favourite interaction of the night was when he promised us “some of those kill your parents, punk rock songs a little later. That’s punk, right?”

We hear some songs from “that yellow album,” before he finally treats us with ‘Freaking Out the Neighbourhood’ and boy was it worth the wait. He’s like a conductor or a director, giving the people what they want. So in control of the demand, that he plays the melody of Freaking out the Neighbourhood, FOUR TIMES because he knows we haven’t had enough yet.

A shoe flies onstage and without missing a beat, Mac pours his beverage in the shoe and does a shoey on the spot. Can we claim him as Australian now?

As the night seems to wrap up, he sits onstage a while as his guitarist shreds out a few tunes. Then, climbs up to the drum kit and tag teams out, giving his drummer, Joe McMurray the mic. The band freestyle a few covers with Joe on vocals and Mac on the kit and it feels so free and downright fun, just to watch them mess around. I was an idiot to expect that Mac would have a typical encore situation, because that’s bonkers in itself. Basically, they fool around for 20 minutes, before wrapping up with their intended outro ‘Watching him Fade Away’.