Metro Theatre, Sydney
Friday February 7th, 2014 :
The crowd was absolutely buzzing at the Metro on Thursday night, eagerly awaiting Frightened Rabbit’s entrance. The place was packed with a mix of young hipsters and slightly older business types, ready to be charmed by some thick scotch accents and jovial beats.
The band got their set cracking right away and set an unrelenting momentum for the night with ‘Holy’ and ‘The Modern Leper’. Frontman Scott Hutchison set up an instant rapport with the crowd, coming off somewhere between bashful and cheeky (a combination that the audience could not get enough of), telling them about his Laneway experience and his sweaty balls. The crowd seemed to take every opportunity to dance, and there was a real pub-gig vibe going on, with people enjoying the music but also having a chat and a drink throughout.
Frightened Rabbit have that same feel-goody sound that has shaped the careers of Mumford and The Lumineers, a vibe that warrants constant singing-along, foot-stomping and just general audience participation, perfect for live gigs. But this now very popular style seems slightly less forced coming from Frightened Rabbit, with their music sounding neither as deliberately melancholy as Mumford, nor as decidedly upbeat and hook-y as The Lumineers. The band provided a mix of fun, dancey tunes and more laidback grooves, sometimes sounding a little like Elbow or even Motorace.
Hutchison showed his chops as a solo performer halfway through the set with a few acoustic songs, taking requests “when a guy calls for requests, he just waits for someone to call out the one they wanted to do anyway”, and calming the audience down with ‘Poke’ and ‘Floating in the Forth’. Whether with a full stage or by himself, Hutchison really kept the night going, keeping the crowd lively throughout with more recent hits from 2013’s Pedestrian Verse, and a few old favourites from their earlier albums.
The band played for just shy of two hours, with Hutchison stating “this is probably the last full Frightened Rabbit set for the year, so we kind of want to make it last.” Everyone was more than happy to stick around for the longer set though, apart from Metro staff who opened the doors before the band had even finished their set, and were then treated to an encore of three more songs. The crowd was still buzzing as they spilled out onto George St at the end of the night, tired but satisfied with a great live performance.
Reviewer: Louisa Bulley
Photographer: Alicia Stephenson
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