Dec 2010 live music compendium (Lemonheads, Jebediah, Lightspeed Champion)

I had three shows lined up for December and unfortunately all three were rather frustrating.

The Lemonheads - 1 Dec 2010 - The Metro
To be honest, this was really 'Evan Dando and friends who are not the original Lemonheads playing through It's a Shame About Ray and then another twenty songs'. All within an hour and a bit, mind - it was an automated assembly line of songs, one note-perfect, joyless rendition after another. The room, sweaty and fully packed for the sold-out show, perked up at the singles and created a nice atmosphere with nostalgic singalongs, but on stage there was nothing fun at all. Dando barely acknowledged the audience, saying about ten words the whole night - and eight of them were 'thank you'. There was a one song encore, a shambolic version of Outdoor Type with old friends and support band Smudge, but at least Dando seemed to be enjoying himself for the first time all night. The band were proficient in their playing, and he still has that great voice (rather unfairly, it seemed that all that hard living has agreed with him) but ultimately, it was not a rousing comeback or even a fun nostalgia trip.

Jebediah - 9 Dec 2010 - Annadale Hotel
And Jebediah was not the fun nostalgia trip I was looking for either. I had such a good time at their last show at the Annadale. This time though...yeah, they were still loud and energetic and still ridiculously young looking (Kev Mitchell has surely drunk from the fountain of life). But after the late start, an hour of listening to them play obscure songs from their back catalog and none of thie hits, weaksauce banter and one too many moments of tech problems, we decided to bail. Just one more song, Al and I said, wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt, but after four times we gave it up for lost. You can't go back to being sixteen again...again.

Lightspeed Champion - 3 Jan 2011 - Spectrum
This was a show steeped in chaos from the start. Cancelled and then rescheduled in the new year, after Devonte Hynes was stuck in New York due to snowstorms, it was a tiny crowd that gathered about a foot from the stage on the night, with the much more popular Born Ruffians show on at the same time just three doors down the road.

Hynes' was truly playing a solo show - just one man on stage, with an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, a keyboard and...a laptop. And this is where things get kind of bizarre - he chose, for half the set, to sing along with his backing tracks playing on his laptop, forsaking live instrumentation for the pre-recorded version, even when he *had* said instrumentation at his disposal. This meant that at times, it felt like we were watching someone at karaoke - well-sung karaoke, sure, but still a little underwhelming as an audience at a show. The biggest shame was that when Hynes chose to go without the track and just accompany himself on guitar or keyboard, he was really good and the music was really really lovely. The highlights, for me, were an acoustic version of Deadhead Blues and of Flush Out, a new song (which he released for free download today!).

He was well-received, none the less; surrounded by enthusiastic fanboys and one very persistent photographer, he struck poses and sang his heart out and for the last song, a cover of Hello, he sang to the crowd in the thick of the crowd on the tiny floor, which finally broke the nervous atmosphere and gave the show and the room some life, just a little too late.

Jebediah - 5 Sept 2008 - Annandale Hotel

Inside the venue it was warm and already packed with an older crowd ready to relive their late teens and early twenties with a good Aussie band playing a good Aussie gig. And they'd have to be a tough critic with a heart of stone to have come away disappointed at the end of the night.

Jebediah played mostly old favourites from their first two albums, mixed in with a few later songs as well as some new material due out next year. The new songs are catchy and fit in fine with the rest of their set, but it was the old songs that the crowd really came for, and what they really enjoyed. It was a sight to have bald men in collared shirts bouncing up and down to the music like fifteen year olds at their first gig.

Kevin Mitchell has the most adorable grin, and he had it on a lot; the band were obviously very happy to be back on stage after a three year hiatus ("Emo happened," Kevin deadpanned as an explanation). The weird thing was that the band didn't look like they'd aged at all. I last saw them nine years ago at Homebake, but even as we surged closer to the stage they looked just as they had all that time ago. I heard a lot of people around us murmuring the same thing, and I'm leaning towards the band having a collective portrait somewhere in an attic that's growing uglier by the moment ala Dorian Gray, though I suppose 'vampires' could also be a valid explanation.

After about an hour of playing, and having played a good amount of their best known songs - Feet Touch the Ground, Harpoon, Animal, Please Leave - they started taking requests. Teflon was hugely fun, with the whole crowd jumping up and down and yelling '1, 2, 3, 4' happily back at the band leading out of the chorus. At the 'end' of the show, after leaving the stage for a few minutes while the crowd were treated to a wall of reverb, the band returned to the audience's joy, and went into their biggest song of all, Leaving Home.

Then promptly returned to taking requests, throwing in some long forgotten tracks (Benedict! That really took me back to being fourteen again), as well as admitting that they couldn't remember how to play Military Strongmen (to the audience's disappointment), and deflecting the odd audience comment ("But we've already played Teflon!" Kevin said, wryly amused, to one obviously persistent fan). Finally, they settled on Invaders as their last song, as per two fans in the front row, who were then invited to come up on stage and take over vocal duties, which they really took to, complete with air guitaring and rock star moves. It was a hilarious and awesome way to end the night, feeling that no matter how much time had elapsed, Jebediah were still a great band with a connection with the local fans who loved them.

NDC
Feet Touch the Ground
(new song)
It's Over
Animal
Please Leave
Harpoon
No Sleep
(new song)
Fall Down
Teflon
Star Machine
Jerks of Attention

Leaving Home
Monument
Benedict
Invaders