Live Review: Jebediah, Glenn Richards

20 February 2016 | 12:27 pm | Lillie Siegenthaler

"A chilly bite in the air forces the penguin mosh to disband quickly, as everyone hastily packs up to get out of the cold."

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A light sprinkle of rain welcomes the crowd that have settled in front of the stage after a dry frolic through the zoo. A small city of umbrellas form before Glenn Richards takes to the stage, easing into a ballad. He switches it up with a few stripped back Augie March favourites like One Crowded Hour, mixed through with songs from his solo debut, including dark lament Barfly Prometheus. The alluring echoes of the plucked guitar paired with Richards' mesmerising voice seem to provide the audience with a strange contentment for sitting in cold half-drizzle.

Jebediah launch into their set beginning with Jerks Of Attention, with no stirs from the audience until a small dance group forms for She’s Like A Comet. The band’s alternative tone is rooted with embellishments of punk flair, exemplified by Vanessa Thornton’s fox white manga hair; the distortion resonance wallows through the amps in song breaks, and the overdrive of Bob Evans’ slur turns lyrics into ambiguous wails.

You can see that Evans is a family type of guy. After dedicating the second song to his four-year-old daughter, he regularly blows her a kiss offstage. He also tries reaching out to the tweens in the audience by using his Dad humour to poke fun at Internet meme lingo. After cautioning the inappropriateness of next song Please Leave, Evans strikes a chord that washes him clean of his fatherly charm. In an instant he converts back to his reckless head-banging psyche, belting out lyrics like "Now everything is cool up until when/Accidentally screw up your life again."

The wet weather lifts, revealing a cloudy sky of faint mauve glow. Their 2013 hit Fall Down feeds some much-needed energy into the crowd, encouraging people to break away from their picnic groups. The audience starts to realise the efficiency of keeping warm when huddled like penguins, establishing a decent mosh for songs Harpoon and Control. After a few of their triple j covers, the set finishes with Evans lying on the flour, an arched back pushing his guitar to the sky. A chilly bite in the air forces the penguin mosh to disband quickly, as everyone hastily packs up to get out of the cold.

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