Live Review: The Preatures, Rolling Blackouts, The Creases

Starting the night are indie-rock outfit Rolling Blackouts. They’re not what you'd expect for The Preatures' opening band, but they’re good either way and rapidly draw members of the audience from the back of the room to the front. They’ve got a slight country twang to their music, which puts some people off, but for the most part everyone enjoys them.

Up next are band-of-the-moment, The Creases. Immediately you notice their Blur-esque haircuts and pastel guitars as they stroll on stage, their British-inspired aesthetic ringing true. "Hey, we're The Creases, we're from Brisbane. We're very nervous but very excited to be here,” says lead singer Joe Agius. They start off with Gradient — the room is packed by this point and we’re all dancing around to their boppy Brit-pop-esque jams. They slip in a cover of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance and close with Static Lines, leaving us excitedly waiting for The Preatures.

Finally, the time comes, the lights go down and the Sydney five-piece open with hit song Somebody’s Talking. Immediately, you notice that unfortunately The Preatures aren’t as good live as they are recorded. The vocals are scratchy and screechy and it just doesn’t sound right. You also notice that the lead guitarist Jack Moffitt and lead singer Isabella Manfredi are all lovey-dovey (so much so that unaware punters start questioning if they’re a couple or not right off the bat) and it’s really distracting. That aside, the vocals are just really lacking tonight; there’s none of that deep vocal line we’ve become accustomed to (and this isn’t helped by Manfredi taking large breaks from singing in-between songs to lie on the ground). A few of us start to wonder if The Creases might have actually outdone The Preatures. Halfway through, Manfredi says to us, "Are you gonna talk? Are you gonna talk through my song?” and it’s super weird and awkward. A few tracks later they play the one we’ve all been waiting for, Is This How You Feel? which absolutely goes off, but after that they’re back to the Manfredi and Moffitt show and no one’s really that into it. They keep the best for last — Take A Card. Hopefully the next time The Preatures come back they’ll be better.