Live Review: Japandroids, Body Type

There's surely no more than 40 or 50 people in the room when Body Type kick off the evening's procession. It's a number that feels lost in a room the size of The Factory, and it's a shame because the group sound great. Eventually though, the crowd starts to grow and the room begins to fill in preparation for Japandroids, giving Body Type an audience their performance is deserving of.

Japandroids' Brian King (guitar and vocals) and David Prowse (drums) hit the stage and waste no time, tearing straight into Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, the title track from their latest album. They move swiftly into Fire's Highway and elicit huge cheers from the crowd, mostly made up of a whole lot of dudes that are dressed in the band's image. Three songs in and there's already been a lot more noise pumped out from the duo than what some larger bands achieve playing the same room.

When they finally do welcome the crowd about four songs in, King introduces them both with first and last names and that they're from Vancouver. It's met with the biggest cheer of the night so far. They offer one more from the new works (True Love And A Free Life Of Free Will) and then roll into older track Wet Hair. They introduce North East South West, rip through it and then inform the crowd that they just performed the best singalong of the tour to date.

Younger Us gets dedicated to anyone who joined them at their Sydney show last tour, and they premiere I'm Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner), laughing that it could be a "clusterfuck". The encouraging crowd reaction suggests that it wasn't and King and Prowse agree among themselves that it was indeed ok.

It's not long before it's time to start wrapping up, after the well-received Young Hearts Spark Fire and Sovereignty, and their tech brings them a glass of wine each to the stage - a much more preferable transition to the evening's end than the usual feigned encore. They close triumphantly with The House That Heaven Built, King jumping atop Prowse's bass drum to churn out the final riffs and outro for an adoring crowd.