Wilberforces

Wilberforces, Happy 12/6
Really hope they made their money back, this impromptu a show can’t have been cheap to put on. It was decided when, last Sunday? OFF-THE-CUFF. First band (Trashflaps, cool name) looked like they were playing one of their first ever shows, vibing more like a practice run than anything else. All-grrl 3-piece, only one song had vocals and the timing was out waaay too often, which was mega disappointing given that they could have sounded pretty noisy and good with more timing/practice/vocals. More volume too. More everything, actually. Creaky Drawers were way better, still rough as in certain areas (oh hey whats up simultaneous keyboard playing/singing) but tight by comparison to Trashflaps. When they weren’t doing Tim Van Dammen hi-hat rape it sounded pretty good, but that wasn’t often enough.
Those two werekinda token performances though, time-fillers and anticipation builders while people drank before Wilberforces. And after the wait, total payoff. In a big way. Taking cues from the likes of The Clean is usually enough to garner a solid appreciation of your band/live show (I mean it is pretty much all Surf City knew to do for ages), but actually covering The Clean?? And WELL??? When Wilberforces tore into Point That Thing Somewhere Else, complete with violent trade-off vocals between Thom and Emily a la Tidal Waves, all I could see was grinning faces on everyone except the band. Not that they seemed unhappy, but the badass aesthetic is just something these Auckland bands seem to pull off effortlessly well. Stage banter consisted of various flippant verbal ‘fuck yous’ to the crowd, the story of David Bain’s erotic autoasphyxiation earlier that evening, and whatever the fuck else frontman Thom came up with. He was funny. Songs like ‘How’s About Fuck You’, which meanders off in its second half, come off way more direct live, all intense postures and beads of sweat flicking over an enthusiastic (but not overly energetic) crowd. You couldn’t really hear the aforementioned tradeoff vocals later on in the set, but it didn’t really matter that much. When you pack as much tongue-in-cheek bird-flipping fun into a set as Wilberforces do, the loss of some vocals isn’t too much of a biggie. That’s an important point, actually: not only were Wilberforces good, they were fun. The ridiculous swagger of Thom versus the legit focus of the other band members, the Flying Nun bounce that’s getting a bona fide resurgence/coverage (here and elsewhere) of late: rather than subscribe to stock 4/4 disco beats, Wilberforces make limb thrashing rock and roll fun that doesn’t sound like Louie Louie or Collapsing Cities. Their album Haunted is out now, probs through their myspace. Go buy it, so they have enough money to come play again before the inevitable move to Melbourne. I’M NOT KIDDING.

Added by admin, June 14, 2009 at 10:29 pm.