Daniel Vigilante
Sandra 1
Michael ItaliaMusic: BATTLES @ Big Day Out and Billboard
Live Music Review
Big Day Out – Melbourne 2008
Billboards Nightclub – 29th January 2008
Post-neo-art-progressive-math bands don’t often get the chance to add the Big Day Out to their CV; and thankfully, they steer clear of genre-labelling also. But for this 4 piece band from New York, the excitement surrounding them amongst the music community inevitably involves questions such as “what do they sound like?” and “who do they sound like?”, and it’s these probing questions that has journalists in a linguistic frenzy of post-neo-progressive genre creativity, which is where all the headaches are coming from. But ask Tyondai Braxton, guitarist/keyboardist/vocals (and sometime avant-garde dancer at live shows), and you’ll get a straight, simple answer: his band is a rock band . . . essentially.
But a rock out is a cop out. No one who plays keyboard whilst at the same time finger taping a complicated non-scale on guitar in a 13/8 time signature is just in a ‘rock band’. But for whatever the hell you want to call it, there’s no doubt: this band is sensational.
And it’s not just the technical mastery that has me lauding them with the praise once given to royal dukes and big-wig czars, showering them with grapes and fine silk (and believe me, had I the word space, I would), it comes down to the crux of what music is about, and that is purely the sound that they make with their instruments. Battles have created a sound that is truly unique, ground breaking, and above all, delightful. And as a live act, they’re equally as enthralling as their sound is, and this week at Big Day Out and a more especially a side show at Billboards proved it.
Playing through most of their debut album, Mirrored, and touching base with some material from their earlier EP’s, the set chugs along like a production line of mechanical hooks and loops, each seemingly more impressive the last. A slight reworking of SZ2 was a personal highlight, but singles Atlas and Tonto were performed remarkably, complete with a league of dedicated enthusiasts somehow singing along to Braxton’s electronic chipmunk vocal.
Ex-Helmet drummer, John Stainer (who also drums for The Mark of Cain and Tomahawk), is ruthless behind the kit, and to see him live is testament to why he is one of the most sought after drummers in progressive rock. His hard-hitting, military-precise action is spell binding, and it is near impossible to watch him without moving at least one limb; more often, your knees jerk back and forth like a rotisserie on crack, and you begin to understand why he has confessed to not being able to speak after a show.
A fantastic opening set by Sydney-based band, Pivot, paved the way nicely for the main act and showed why Australian bands are in-step with our North American counterparts.
The clear sound at the revamped Billboards nightclub, and the fact that the venue tiers up every few metres allowing you to see the stage from practically anywhere, made this the ideal venue to see a band as interesting as this; a band whose machinations are like clockwork, with cutting edge sound scapes and technological mastery, but a band who are still very much human; sweating, pelting, panting humans, who make mistakes and don’t always hit the right note. But this is part of their appeal, and, I suppose, why they still regard themselves as a rock band.
Big Day Out – Melbourne 2008
Billboards Nightclub – 29th January 2008
Battles live at Billboards Nightclub
Post-neo-art-progressive-math bands don’t often get the chance to add the Big Day Out to their CV; and thankfully, they steer clear of genre-labelling also. But for this 4 piece band from New York, the excitement surrounding them amongst the music community inevitably involves questions such as “what do they sound like?” and “who do they sound like?”, and it’s these probing questions that has journalists in a linguistic frenzy of post-neo-progressive genre creativity, which is where all the headaches are coming from. But ask Tyondai Braxton, guitarist/keyboardist/vocals (and sometime avant-garde dancer at live shows), and you’ll get a straight, simple answer: his band is a rock band . . . essentially.
And it’s not just the technical mastery that has me lauding them with the praise once given to royal dukes and big-wig czars, showering them with grapes and fine silk (and believe me, had I the word space, I would), it comes down to the crux of what music is about, and that is purely the sound that they make with their instruments. Battles have created a sound that is truly unique, ground breaking, and above all, delightful. And as a live act, they’re equally as enthralling as their sound is, and this week at Big Day Out and a more especially a side show at Billboards proved it.
Ex-Helmet drummer, John Stainer (who also drums for The Mark of Cain and Tomahawk), is ruthless behind the kit, and to see him live is testament to why he is one of the most sought after drummers in progressive rock. His hard-hitting, military-precise action is spell binding, and it is near impossible to watch him without moving at least one limb; more often, your knees jerk back and forth like a rotisserie on crack, and you begin to understand why he has confessed to not being able to speak after a show.
A fantastic opening set by Sydney-based band, Pivot, paved the way nicely for the main act and showed why Australian bands are in-step with our North American counterparts.
The clear sound at the revamped Billboards nightclub, and the fact that the venue tiers up every few metres allowing you to see the stage from practically anywhere, made this the ideal venue to see a band as interesting as this; a band whose machinations are like clockwork, with cutting edge sound scapes and technological mastery, but a band who are still very much human; sweating, pelting, panting humans, who make mistakes and don’t always hit the right note. But this is part of their appeal, and, I suppose, why they still regard themselves as a rock band.
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