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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah @ Enmore Theatre - 23/05/07

Pissed idiots, over zealous security guards and a strange division of the bottom level of the theatre all pale in comparision to the infectious voice of Alec Ounsworth.

First the negatives..

Like any show with more than 20 people in attendance, there was a whole lot of people getting their 'Wednesday night drink on', crunked out with excess Samuel Jackson's and the like. I don't understand people missing half a show in the line at the bar, especially when they are at a show for a band that has never been to Australia before. It's not like you would have seen a million times before. That said, if you want to get toed up like the single Mum at the Desperate and Dateless Ball then who am I to judge, but, when your swaying into me two minutes into the show or falling ass backwards into strangers or having drunken reunions with people you met on a bus eleven years ago, well then it starts to affect my enjoyment of the show.

Security guards - fuck off with your 'everyone move down this way four steps' - 'why?' - 'hey have you seen the size of me? Move!'

Also, I have never attending the Enmore Theatre when the entire bottom level was for standing patrons. I assuming when I bought my ticket that this whole area was for me, and everyone else with 'standing' tickets to freely roam. Unfortunately, not the case. The bottom level was divided into two sections, the front area and then some sort of second class 'almost front' area. This created two front rows, and more conjestion at the midpoint of the space, where I just happened to end up, ammersed in drunken dickheads and security guards. Not sure about the benefit of this, especially as I saw that they had to employ a kid to stand on the dividing area and tell people that they weren't allowed to go any closer to the stage, and deal with confused folks.

Ok, with my panties now unknotted..

Alec Ounsworth has an unbelievable voice. Sure the music of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is great, but his voice is what I find most appealing about them. It rarely stays in one spot for two long and adds a fantastic sense of emotion to all of their songs. You can tell the he has a strong connection to all of his songs. He doesn't stray too far from the recorded versions of them performing them live, yet still bellows out every song with the intensity at which it was recorded at.

On stage they are a quiet bunch, but that's fine, I didn't go there to hear their political views or reasons for song names etc, I came to see if Alec's voice is such as powerful live as it is on record. And it is, shivers up the spine, it is.

They played a nice mix from both of their releases, although, for the crucial moments, they relied more on their older, better known, numbers. I loved their debut, and Some Loud Thunder was the perfect next step and the mixture of them intertwined worked sooo very well, especially the electronic blend of Satan Said Dance. They came on for a short encore, after an extended break from the stage, and performed the intro track from their debut, Clap Your Hands! complete with the assistance of a megaphone.

The complete set list (via Ocean's Never Listen) :

Over And Over Again (Lost And Found)
Mama, Won't You Keep Those Castles In The Air & Burning?
Some Loud Thunder
Satan Said Dance
Is This Love?
Gimmie Some Salt
In This Home On Ice
Yankee Go Home
Goodbye To The Mother & The Cove
The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth
Details Of The War
Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood
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Clap Your Hands!
Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away
Heavy Metal

Closing with probably my favourite of their songs, Heavy Metal and with the majority of the drunken dickheads that had surrounded me for the most part either heading to another pub or face down in their own vomit dying a Bon Scott style demise, it all came came together perfectly. The lone voice carrying over the crowd, filling the room. No amount of negatives could have possibly outdone that.