Live Review: Sail On! Sail On!, Split Cities, Wooly Mammoth, Odlaw

After a busy day of networking and listening to WAMCon sessions on all things music in WA, the delegates lucky enough to book up early were treated to a twilight sail on the river swan for two hours of sundowner drinks and some last-minute business deals and handshakes.

The evening continued back on dry land with a series of showcase performances, with city centre and suburban venues highlighting some of the hot acts in genre specific events. By the time the boat had docked and the punters got their land legs back, Wooly Mammoth had already left Jimmy's Den's dimly lit stage, making way for cheeky quirks of garage indie-rockers Odlaw to fill the air with their entertaining satire on serious rock. With '90s revival oozing from each perfectly structured song, frontman Mark Neil's clean-cut looks and reverb-effected vocals made light work of this distorted rock performance. With a mixture of heavy-edged tunes intertwined with slower lazy numbers, these nerd rockers maintained a tightly tuned set that seemed to want to get heavier and more punk-esque. Their preference for traditional song structure over outright crazy made sure this show ended as polished as it had begun.

Next up in the indie showcase were the post-rock experimentalists Split Cities. A deep-toned, guitar-focused foursome, with more floor pedals than one could imagine possible to control. At times, the tuning of instruments and vocals seemed optional, and though their switch from emotively dark guitar passages to intensive full-on rock with icy crisp riffs gave some direction, it was hard to predict. The overly indulgent guitar music touched on smudge rock or punk but lost cohesion and gave little room for the audience to get fully engaged with. Vocal content from frontman Shaun Rodan distracted from the whaling maelstrom of dredged up chords distortions and gritted bass drive.

Rounding off the night were the dramatically punchy Sail On! Sail On! Charismatic and amusingly chatty, singer and guitarist Skinny O'Leary kicked off their heavy hitting set full of gusto and took no time to up the pace and treat the crowd (not only to free beer at the bar, but a sound that was intensive - as it was intended to be). A melodic maelstrom of heavy, slanted guitars and sub-harmonic paths shook up Jimmy's Den with bullets of strumming rock. Skinny's the unsuspecting frontman - taking each song in his stride while tempting the audience to accept their take on punk rock.