Live Review: Loon Lake, Horror My Friend

There are two words to describe Loon Lake: ridiculously fun. However, the first all ages leg of their Good Times tour in Adelaide just missed the mark when compared to their usual high energy shows.

Locals Horror My Friend were a well suited support and warmed the crowd with their indie-garage-rock, awkward banter about fennel and idolisation of noodle-haired Chad Kroeger. The night started off, well, strange, with most of the audience seated cross-legged on the floor of the half-filled Uni Bar. Eventually, a few brave souls got up and danced along, which encouraged others to follow suit.

The Loon Lake boys had to compete with a packed-out Uni pub crawl, another gig at the brand new Pirie Street Social Club and a sold out show by fellow Aussie feelgood dudes Sticky Fingers, which unfortunately made for a relatively empty venue. Nevertheless, the audience grew and by the end of the show, the room was full and most punters were having a good time. Loon Lake is a band whose surfy, indie-rock vibes, awesome stage presence and genuine love for playing for the masses command crowd-surfing and lyric scream-alongs. Definitely a bit more than head-bopping and foot-tapping, but that's all they really received from the Adelaide crowd for the majority of their set. Frontman Sam Nolan fought a broken string throughout an unexpected, yet incredibly cool mash-up of The Week and Taylor Swift's Trouble, but friendly banter kept the crowd in good spirits as the issue was rectified. Launching into Bad To Me, heads were bopping and feet were tapping a little more enthusiastically. It wasn't until the final two songs – crowd favourites Cherry Lips and In The Summer –that everyone genuinely got into it with dancing and singing along; however it seemed a little too late. As the boys gave praise, said their goodbyes and left the stage, the small crowd began to file out quickly, but a delayed chant of “encore” brought them back for one final song, a cover of The Darkness' I Believe In A Thing Called Love; a definite highlight of the night.