Live Review: Hot Dub Time Machine, Furnance & The Fundamentals

We're not entirely sure when pop retro did a full-irony 360, but Christ we're pleased it has. We don't know if the young people down the front truly understood how post-daggy singing along to Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al really is, but I do love that they loved it truly, madly, deeply. By the way - no Savage Garden tonight, but they would have fit right in. Between the live pop mash of Furnace & The Fundamentals and the mostly pre-rec/DJ-delivered work of Hot Dub Time Machine, the best (and most unapologetically worst) of pop music heaved through Enmore Theatre tonight and demanded attention. And I. Had. The Time Of My Life (yep, that one got a go, too).

The Sydney-based Furnace & The Fundamentals led the charge with a fantastic live set of mashed-up covers, complete with songs you never knew you wanted to sing badly with a group of strangers (the theme to Home And Away), plus the songs you absolutely knew you wanted to sing badly with a group of strangers (Bohemian Rhapsody, you beautiful bastard).

Hot Dub Time Machine had upped the stakes with this support, but he delivered. A few nice additions for previous travellers included a special emphasis on 'Strayan bands (including a tribute to Stevie Wright), as well as a special Sydney-centric dance section towards the end. A bit of biff down the front somewhere in the late 1950s was slightly unexpected (DJ Tom Loud stopped and asked them to "chill out" in an effort to keep things nice), but after that the energy went where it should. Staples like the release of 99(ish) Red Balloons, streamer canons and bouncy balls were well received, as were the tweaks to visuals and the addition of some live players — sax, electric violin and a live Hot Dub gospel choir for Like A Prayer.

With 60-odd years of pop music to draw on it's always going to be fun but, damn! Hot Dub Time Machine and Furnace & The Fundamentals brought it.