Live Review: Davey Lane, The Tamborine Girls, Raindrop

Sydney-based psych rockers Raindrop opened the night with all the reverb and delay they could muster.

Charging through tracks that included It Goes Off and Killing Me from their first release EP, 001, Miles Devine led the four-piece with vocals resembling those of a cracking pubescent, acknowledging that his voice was not quite up to par. Devine ended the set with an epileptic-inspired episode, perhaps a touch enthusiastic for the near empty room. Nevertheless, the early-bird punters applauded in appreciation. 

With hardly a mumble into the mic, The Tambourine Girls jumped into their set with a groovy first track. “We’re The Tambourine Girls if you don’t know,” the shaggy-haired Simon Relf introduced the band before leading into a lengthy instrumental interlude.

A solo Townes Van Zandt broke up the dreamy set, followed by Blood And Bones. “Blood and bones... It’s good for your pouring on your garden,” explained Relf, as they filled the room with ambient echoes drawn from decades past.

Not a moment too late, the “notorious chord-slinging cowboy” Davey Lane and band walked on stage and got right into it with the single, Komarov. Between songs, the crowd called out compliments regarding Lane’s eccentric Russian-inspired attire. “I was waiting for that. Thank you. It is a nice suit,” Lane agreed. The catchy Witch In My Mind had people in front bopping along with a happy sway from the rest of the audience. Drummer, Brett Wolfenden, couldn’t have appeared happier while rocking a sensational ‘70s-inspired look.

Lane’s carefree stage presence was a welcome feature, coupled with poetically awkward banter about the bassist’s discount Slurpee connection, how good-looking the other band is, and feedback problems due to Soviet technology, all fuelling the jovial tone of the show. In The Light Of The Sun, A Lesson In Cause And Effect and Smash Yer Head In were all well received hits for the rather content audience.

Lane humbly thanked everyone for “getting in with us at the bottom. Now this is the awkward part where we walk off stage, you all go ‘clap, clap, clap’ and we come back,” the now frontman comically acknowledged the encore portion of the show that was ushered in by an impromptu ‘We’re Stoked You Stuck Around’ song. An extended You’re The Cops. I’m The Crime closed the show with just as much vigour and enthusiasm as they’d started with, proving that Davey Lane’s live debut of Atonally Young was well worth experiencing.