Live Review: Pluto Jonze, Hey Geronimo

Friday night saw Sydney dude Pluto Jonze make a tour stop in Wollongong city. The gig was a typical Wollongong affair: a small number of punters, nestled away in the close quarters of celebrated independent venue Yours & Owls.

In support were Hey Geronimo, whose sound seems to have matured slightly since the release of their last EP. Though there are still elements of the boisterous, energetic indie pop that the band burst onto the scene with early last year, there seemed to be a few more moments of care and consideration in the band's newer songs.  There seemed too to be a little more genuine sentimentality in one track particularly, a track that, apparently, chronicled the adventures that one of the band members' girlfriend's car might have had if it had been pushed off a cliff. Hey Geronimo did a particularly good job of working with the relatively small space and crowd.

Pluto Jonze had propped his habitual analogue televisions, screening black-and-white static, on a high shelf in Yours & Owls. Despite the fact that this crowd must have seemed miniscule in comparison to those Pluto usually plays for, the band seemed upbeat, cheery and excited as ever. Handing out tambourines, cowbells and an assortment of weird percussive instruments to a number of punters dancing in the front row, Jonze instructed the crowd to “go nuts”. And go nuts the band certainly did. There's a strange, bubbly eclecticism about Pluto Jonze's music. Meet Me Under Neon is a song that is so bright and so purely pop that it seems to have this bizarre, insane quality; Plastic Bag In A Hurricane is slightly darker, more ethereal. Yet each song is punctuated with Pluto Jonze's distinctive synth lines and - of course - otherworldly theremin noises. Pluto Jonze did an excellent job of bringing to life some eclectic tunes for an intimate audience.