Two bands, six guitarists, two bass players, two drummers and one keyboard player…..and not a vocalist (or a microphone stand) to be seen.
This was the reality of Friday night’s show at Hobart’s Altar Bar, with Sydney’s post-rock maestros, We Lost The Sea teaming up with Tasmania’s up-and-coming post-rock wonderkids, follow (deliberately lowercase) for the Australian portion of their world tour promoting their latest album offering, A Single Flower. The Altar Bar gig was the third in a run of four Australian shows, with a home-town Manning Bar show in Sydney set for Saturday evening to round the tour out.
follow were first on stage, and once again proved their astonishing abilities with a set comprising material from their debut album, Old Haunts alongside new single, Cherry Blossoms in the Front Yards, Forever (reviewed on Backseat Mafia here).
Obviously, We Lost The Sea followed-on, and upped the ante as they played the entirety of A Single Flower, with the absolute standout being their behemoth of a track Blood Will Have Blood, a track which could have been three separate songs, but melds together, all the while riding a twenty-seven minute wave of an emotional, sonic roller-coaster. Despite a slightly disappointing crowd, We Lost The Sea returned to the stage to perform a well-deserved encore.
It was hard for me to separate the two bands in terms of musicality or the exultation I felt during each of their performances, and to that end, I will endeavour to explain what the music did for me. I shall confess to having prior knowledge of follow’s music and live performance, but little exposure to that of We Lost the Sea (albeit that that will change now) before the evening began.
I have always been partial to instrumental songs and music, but have always struggled to find the words about why this may be so. However, after having a full evening of instrumental post-rock, I believe my thoughts about how both bands made me think and feel may have unlocked some inner eloquence. Post-rock music is full of light and shade, the music ranges from delicate and intricate to thunderous and ominous, and at its’ best it conveys emotion and feeling without the need for it to be spelt out with lyrics.
Bass and drums create varying tempos and moods which allow the rest of the members of each band to layer in the musical chiaroscuro which makes each song what it is. What puts the icing on the cake, for me at least, is the fact that all three guitarists (and the keyboards in We Lost The Sea) from each of the bands contributes in more-or-less equal shares to the fluidity, the emotion and the sheer exhilaration as each song morphs its’ way through an ever-changing dynamic, with no one player ever seeming to outshine the others, as often happens in more traditional styles of rock music. Much of this occurs not just from song to song, but within each song, and both bands brought this in spades. These bands do musical story-telling without a single word being spoken and this is testament as to why this genre of music is so popular around the world (especially so in We Lost the Sea’s case, who have already captured the attention of critics and fans alike in both Europe and North America).
The show (and tour) was presented by Select Music and Bird’s Robe.
We Lost the Sea Gallery:
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All images: ©fullonrockphotography/Andrew Fuller
