Live Review: Okkervil River, Roller One, Ernest Ellis

The spacious atmosphere concocted by Sydney-based Ernest Ellis, a five- (usually six)-piece is a strange place in which to find a wafting saxophone. It's even stranger to have all aversions to said instrument happily vanish. Confident to the point of cocky – a quality that's rare in a young band – singer-songwriter Roland (Ernest) Ellis is a discomfiting, galvanising frontman with a rich, expressive voice and swooping range. Nephew of Warren Ellis (Dirty Three, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds), Ernest Ellis sings and thrums his guitar with eyes closed, occasionally waking to stare transfixed and sing as if narrating events we can't see. The gathering crowd approves of the two-chord swells, Ellis's howling over near-silence and the band's emphatic refrains that make the outfit sound a publicist away from Cloud Control-style adulation.

Scuppering any chance for a break in the front bar due to their instantly captivating tunes, Roller One settle into a comfortable, bluegrass swagger and barely shift a gear for their set. Singer-guitarist Fergus McAlpin has a Bill Callahan-like oak-aged quality to his voice and a gawky, toothy grin like The Simpsons' Cletus Spuckler as he beams in between songs. In partially unbuttoned shirts, the trio (all from the equally mesmeric Silver City Highway) satisfyingly close their set with subtle urgings and somnambulistic splendour.

With the venue now full to bursting, red curtains part and Okkervil River explode to life with a set full of emphatic, articulate rock. It Was My Season, On A Balcony, Pink-Slips and Where The Spirit Left Us are the highlights in a breathless batch of opening salvos; no middle eights, no gaps, no banter, no let-up. For 20 minutes it's Okkervil River giving us the first side of their most recent album The Silver Gymnasium. Okkervil River sound like a less pretentious Arcade Fire and singer Will Sheff explodes with the energy of Springsteen. The Valley and John Allyn Smith Sails are mid-set high points, with Lauren Gurgiolo's multi-instrumentalism a boon to both.

Playing through a broken string to give us a searing take on Kansas City and a fist-pumping version of Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe seem not to tire the band. Audience members grin at each other. Sheff returns for a show-stopping solo performance of A Girl In Port and A Stone, which seem to suck the breath out of everyone in the room before sending us out into White Night.