Live Review: Dave Graney & The Mistly, The Morning Night, Ben Witt

When I arrive in the sea of haircuts and non-committal facial expressions that is The Bird at half past eight on a Saturday, The Chemist's Ben Witt has already started his set of solo electric guitar. Less pop and plenty more abrasive than his day job, it's nice to see him embracing his idiosyncrasies. The Morning Night are up next, whose floaty pop sits somewhere between Suede and The Panics and has the crowd gently bobbing their heads.

The Bird's live room fills with more mature faces and hardcore music heads in time for Dave Graney & The MistLY to play. After introducing themselves with their now standard overture We Don't Belong To Anybody, the gig properly kicks off with songs from their new album You've Been In My Mind. Graney and band have perfected the detached take on '70s Australian boogie music they explored on 2008's We Wuz Curious; this time around the band hit grooves much harder, to the point where the entire thing threatens to become straight up disco. This is helped by a great sound mix that emphasises the playing of bassist Stu Thomas. Old songs are brought into the band's current style, with Night Of The Wolverine's bluesy reworking from the Rock N Roll Is Where I Hide LP funked up to the point that I start awkwardly dancing. Some of the haircuts head in from the beer garden. Graney is having a blast, with the songs allowing him a bit more physicality than the more cerebral efforts showcased on recent tours. This reaches a crowd-pleasingly hammy peak on encore My Schtick Weighs A Ton, before closing with a hard rolling Rock N Roll Is Where I Hide. The audience head home satisfied and surprised; nobody expected a funk gig tonight, but we got a really good one.