Live Review: Woods & Mt Eerie

As Weezer was rolling out a complete rendering of their finest album just a stone's throw away at the Perth Arena, a musical excursion of an entirely different nature was going down across the tracks at the Bakery. Local outfit HAMJAM set a fair pace early with their jangly pop smarts but, keyboard flourishes notwithstanding, it was a fairly one-dimensional performance. There was little variety in tempo and too often the dual guitars were indistinguishable, though there were flashes of decent songwriting that promise better things.

Before a note was struck, the question of just what form Mt Eerie, the recording name of Washington resident Phil Elverum, would take was an interesting sub-plot to proceedings. Elverum took flight alone tonight but easily and beautifully filled the room with a voice that was mesmerising and a 12-string guitar whose influence was remarkable. Those who'd hoped for faithful reproductions from last year's two releases, Clear Moon and Ocean Roar, didn't get them, but they certainly couldn't have been disappointed with how they were interpreted. Where Elverum's vocals were muffled on Clear Moon, here they were clear and crisp, traversing high and low octaves and sounding at times remarkably similar to the tones of Mark Kozelek. His voice, however, was only half the story. Elverum sucked every inch of life out of his guitar, from harsh notes that cracked at the end of what were very brief tracks to full-bodied chords that rang out into the night. From one man, it was a performance of some magnitude.

Matters got significantly more conventional when Woods took to the stage, but they were no less interesting. Theirs was a set that leaned most heavily on the band's last two albums but the songs, again, were not simply carbon copies of the records. Bend Beyond was the greatest example of this, and also the best track of the night, as they pulled the middle apart and stretched it to almost double its length. Woods' tightness throughout such moments was impeccable, and for that they owe a great deal of thanks to bassist Kevin Morby. It is, of course, impossible to get away from the incredible voice of Jeremy Earl, which seems to sit naturally higher than everyone else's and then, when he's in the mood, goes even higher still. It never cracked, never wobbled, rarely strained, and punctuated songs that were already brimming with life.