Emiliana Torrini @ The Powerhouse November 16th

We went down to the Powerhouse right after the first of the heavy storms to hit the South East Queensland area that night. We arrived with enough time to get a great carpark and enjoy some more of the rain on the back deck with a couple of drinks. Inside the main Powerhouse Theatre, you wouldn't have had any clue about what was happening outside, owing to the great acoustics of the place. It was nice to go to a sit-down event for a change, especially given that we were on the tail end of a pretty big weekend.

Supporting the night was Sydney quartet, Charge Group. I couldn't help thinking of The Dirty Three when I was listening to them, most probably because of how the violin influenced the sound. Whilst I didn't feel that the vocals really fit in with the music, and I thought the stage presence was lacking a bit between songs, it didn't stop me from taking a liking to the music.

After intermission and a slightly extended period of waiting, Emiliana Torrini made her way to the stage with her "Mötley Crüe" of a backing band. The delay was explained by the fact that she was pre-empting a possible wardrobe malfunction and needed to find another dress to replace the one that turned out to be partially transparent under the stage lights!

The set was mainly drawn from her most recent two albums and she sounded genuinely surprised to hear requests from the first album. The exaggerated dynamic tempo of Heartstopper was executed very well, and it was great to hear a live version of Sunny Road - the song that drew me to her music to begin with. I had only gotten around to buying her latest album on the night, but I loved what I heard from it, especially Gun, Ha-Ha and Fireheads. The rest of the songs, including Lifesaver, Fisherman's Woman, Big Jumps, Me And Armini, Heard It All Before, Jungle Drum, and many more that I've since forgotten, were just as enjoyable.

In contrast to Charge Group, Torrini was very chatty between songs, often regaling the audience with personal and humourous stories about her life, her music writing, the band and whatever happened to find its way into her head at the time.

The earlier reference to the band was made literally by her when commenting about the guitar swapping that was going on between some of the songs, but the band really were the most unlikely looking group I have seen in a while. They certainly proved that looks can be deceiving though by providing a great musical platform of electric/acoustic/slide guitars, electric piano, keyboards, melodica, glockenspiel, drums and other percussion, upon which Torrini delivered her vocals. Bass guitar was absent from most songs, but it didn't feel like it wasn't missed.

I think the exhaustion from the flight on the way over to Australia really caught up with Torrini by the end of the night, as she struggled to recall lyrics and keep a straight face through the encore, but it wasn't to the detriment of the entertainment value of the performance. In all, another wonderful night of music!

Del Toro, An Horse, and Do The Robot @ The Brisbane Powerhouse

On this rather warm April day, we made our way down to the Brisbane Powerhouse for the Sunday afternoon Live Spark session.

The Powerhouse is literally one of Brisbane's old power stations. It was given a new life about 10 years ago and reborn into one of the city's great live performance venues. They've left a lot of the interior and exterior in-tact, which gives it a great industrial feel. It's situated on the river right next to New Farm park, and is one convenient CityCat stop away from us.

The three Brisbane bands in today's session were all from the Valve record label, and were each launching their latest releases.

Up first this afternoon was Do The Robot. This two-piece made up of a guitarist and keyboardist (who also played the glockenspiel & guitar for a couple of songs) had a pretty good sound to them. Whilst I liked the minimalist repetitive style of the songs, I felt they were a little nervous, and as a result, not very tight together. I still decided to pick up their album, Amp On Fire, and I'll be interested to see how much of a difference their recorded sound has.

When I saw Kate Cooper from An Horse on stage to set up, I recognised her from Iron On and was a bit worried about what was to follow. I've had a couple of not so great experiences seeing Iron On play which, although was probably related to technical difficulties at the time, have left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I'm happy to report that An Horse's set today fit in well with the other two bands, and ended up being a pretty good listen. They had the most stage presence out of the three bands by far, which added to the overall enjoyment of their set. Having said that, they still weren't my cup of tea, and they were the only band whose CD I didn't pick up today.

The third and final act today was Del Toro. I saw them once before (back in 2005 apparently) supporting City City City at The Alley Bar. I remember really liking them at the time and was disappointed to find out after their set that they were still working on getting a recording out. Since then, they fell off the radar for me, so much so that I only vaguely recognised the name when I saw their gig advertised.

In contrast to the other two bands, Del Toro were quietly confident on stage. But that's where the quietness ended! Their instrumental set consisted of a number of screaming high guitar tones, interspersed with sharp bass and solid drummig. I recently heard their style described as "desert rock", which is a much more accurate description than I could come up with (along the lines of alt country/blues/rock).

Their set was short but sweet and I picked up their latest album, Hydra, on my way out, so there may be more about them coming soon from this space.