Unknown Mortal Orchestra w/ DZ Deathrays & Kill City Creeps – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney 07th December 2011

We arrived on a very wet Oxford Street and found a pre-gig venue for beers and burgers.  This meant that we missed first opener “Kill City Creeps” but turned up in time to catch “DZ Deathrays”.  This two piece from Brisbane are a confused bunch.  Not quite Garage, not quite Metal, not quite there yet.  The song for the most part sounded very similar bar a few exceptions.  Guitarist Shane Parsons' seems to have spent allot more time playing with effects pedals than coming up with interesting guitar lines.  A fairly dull and one note kind of set from the band but here’s hoping that they play more and come up with some interesting.

I have been a fan of Ruban’s Nielson’s previous band “The Mint Chicks” for a long time and had seen them a number of times over the years and their “Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!” is one of my favourite albums of all time.  Unknown Mortal Orchestra is quite a departure from the Punk sound of the Mint Chicks and one that has divided people I know.

A full OAF greeted Unknown Mortal Orchestra.  Bassist Jake Portrait and drummer Julien Ehrich are firstly a great rhythm section but also give Ruban room to take these songs to different places to the album.  The songs are very different in a live setting and have a driving psychedelic rock feel that creates version of the songs that in my opinion surpass the album versions.  The highlights of the set were “Thought Ballune” which had a strut and the melody was much stronger in a live setting, the evil rock n roll of “Boy Witch” and the encore a cover of Cans “Vitamin C”.  The song starts off with just drums and then bass and the band really seemed to be having fun jamming this song out.  Cool ending to a great set on a Wednesday night.  I am certainly keen to see what comes next from the band as I think an album with this band will be a very different prospect.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Setlist:

Little Blu House

Thought Ballune

Strangers Are Strange

Nerve Damage!

Jello And Juggernauts

How Can You Luv Me

Boy Witch

Ffunny Ffriends

Encore:

Vitamin C