Live Review: The Preatures, Bad//Dreems, Gunns - Metro Theatre

21 July 2014 | 10:54 am | Xavier Rubetzki Noonan

The Preatures prove they're the real deal in Sydney.

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Perth’s Gunns showcase some impressive jangly garage-pop led by forceful drumming and three luscious guitars, with a lot of inventive tricks up its sleeve.

One tune, ostensibly about citrus fruit, had a fantastic build through the verses that yearned for a payoff which was teased throughout and never reached till the end, while another featured dreamy synth and Beach House-like sweeping guitars.

Bad//Dreems. Pic by Josh Groom.

Adelaide’s Bad//Dreems had a bit of an early Silverchair vibe to their first few songs. High energy grungy songs abounded, propped up by frantic drumming and loud bass.

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Caroline had a bit more sunshine built into it, paying off nicely in its bridge with some nifty drumming and guitar licks, while Dumb Ideas had the droning punk verses and huge chorus of a Parquet Courts song (in fact it kind of sounded exactly like Light Up Gold…) The affable pub-rock crowd-pleasers at the start of the set turned larger in scope towards the end and, paired with some dramatic lighting, set the stage for the headliner perfectly.

Before long, the crowd screamed as The Preatures strode on stage; frontwoman Isabella Manfredi walking on after the band and getting her own perhaps even more rapturous applause. It’s clear almost immediately that she’s the reason to come to a Preatures show.

Manfredi is the real deal.

The band busted right into the raunchy rock and roll riffs as Manfredi’s powerful vocals kicked in. Manfredi is the real deal: incredibly comfortable on stage, she laps up the eye contact, shoulder-popping and staring defiantly down the barrels of the crowd’s camera-phones. Instrumental interludes between the songs maintained a moody atmosphere and bridged the gap between gentler old tracks and more upbeat new ones.

New single, Two Tone Melody, was suitably intimate, with a disco ball adding a nice touch, while another newie, Somebody’s Talking, had great big thumping drums and a chance for Manfredi to pull off a triumphant handstand partway through.

Another highlight was a perfectly Preature-y rendition of Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again (thankfully a good chunk of the crowd knew how to respond). The natural closer, Is This How You Feel?, was as cool as ever and sounded positively huge, especially with the whole Metro theatre singing along.