Live Review: Bluejuice, Tyler Touche, Jody

Brisbane turn out in their droves to farewell party-rock vets Bluejuice.

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It feels like half the city has turned out to farewell party-rock veterans Bluejuice tonight, if the wall-to-wall sea of heads that occupies the Hi-Fi tonight is anything to go by. Before the night’s entertainment even starts, it is obvious that Brisbane is unabashed in its love of a hearty good time.
 

It is unfortunate for the evening’s openers, “inner-west mope rock” four-piece Jody, that the crowd doesn’t really do much to actually demonstrate that fact for the majority of their set. So as not to unfairly paint the punters as joyless lumps, though, let’s be real about Jody: they’re not fooling anybody with flimsy genre neologies; they’re an indie-pop band, a little rough around the edges – rough enough to throw “rock” into the Unearthed description – but an indie-pop band through and through. And it’s fine, but it’s just fine, exemplified by acceptable but not-particularly-special cuts such as The Cairos-Lite-ish Never Change or the Diet Last Dinosaurs Love Boat. Jody seem confused about who they are, or what they want to be – indie-pop is an inherently uplifting genre, and yet watching them churn out these songs lacks any real sense of joy, which is a… strange way to start a party. Whatever milks your Guernsey, though.
 

A much better way to have started the party would have been with second support Tyler Touche, aka the teenage Brisbane DJing whiz who crafted the infuriatingly catchy (but undeniably fun) Baguette, with which he rapturously closes out his set. On the way there, though, he pulls out a string of smile-inducing four-to-the-floor-driven dance tracks, including a few cuts with smooth-as-silk local soul man Sterling Silver (Midas Touch is a nostalgia-soaked blast) and a few-minute-long detour away from the desk (what do you do, DJs?) to bust out some live saxophone because who’s Timmy Trumpet? Arguable gimmick infringement aside, though, it’s hard to deny the prodigious muso’s talent as he effortlessly slides from song to song with the casual aplomb of a performer several years his senior. He could do big things, so if someone who is properly into dance music could keep an eye on that, that would be great.

 

With the crowd finally warmed up to appropriate ebullience standards, the evening’s main event, Bluejuice, step out to floor-shaking applause, adorned in UV-sensitive fluoro tape and armbands and ready to deliver the show the audience came to see – and they don’t remotely disappoint. Even if you are of the “too cool for Bluejuice” camp (up yours, by the way), it must be impossible to stand in this room and not understand that, for whatever novelty value Bluejuice have possessed throughout their more-than-decade-long career, they are more than a novelty band; from the opening strains of Recession, straight into follow-up SOS and ultimate single I’ll Go Crazy, the crowd are utterly in thrall to the men on stage.

 

They make their way through their comprehensive twentysomething-song set with the enthusiasm and energy of a band at its peak, but with the back catalogue of an outfit with experience. Ain’t Tellin’ The Truth is a singalong delight – most of the performance is – with a new-song-heavy blend that also features throwback favourites such as Head Of The Hawk and perennial highlight Work preceding the band’s slightly country-tinged cover of Lana Del Rey’s Video Games as they progress to the final quarter of the show. It wouldn’t be a Bluejuice show without antics, and a newly shaven Jake Stone offers it up in the form of a very-sweaty-looking shirtless surf through the crowd, making the most of his final opportunity to be clawed at by an ocean of screaming Queenslanders.

 

The band wind out their epic finale – which goes for more than an hour, just sayin’ – with breakthrough hit Vitriol before the deafening applause from everyone in the room draws the exeunting revellers back on stage to cap things off with a double serve of Head Of The Hawk-era encore, saying their last goodbyes with Medication and – what else? – the simply unbeatable Broken Leg.  It’s a perfect way to close the evening, and not a face in the house is left without a smile once the colourful outfit disappear off-stage for the last time.

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