Live Review: The Preatures, The Creases, Low Lux

For a band that has only been together for about a year, Low Lux sure know how to entice a new audience with their dark, brooding intensity and brighter grooves, with their latest release Ruin a fast favorite. Former Bridezilla member Daisy Dowd absolutely shredded on her violin before the band sauntered off stage, leaving the audience gasping.

The Creases made high-waisted pants and turtlenecks cool again, with their raw, bouncing garage pop warming the crowd. The immediacy of first single Static Lines and raw pop of How Long 'Til I Know seemed to get the audience going, but the intermittent interruptions for audio fine-tuning took away from a promising set.

The Preatures proved why their versatility and sheer showmanship has seen the five-piece band become one of Australia’s most recent success stories. They set the pace for the show without hesitation, opening with Somebody’s Talking, which had the crowd bouncing and singing along instantly. Frontwoman Isabella Manfredi was the reincarnation of Chrissy Amphlett on stage. She was tough, she was sassy, and she had a rock'n'roll voice that brought the house down during her power-punch rendition of The Divinyls' Boys In Town. Her self-assured, piercing vocals never once overpowered the band, marrying in perfectly as another instrument among the crunchy chords and syncopated rhythms of guitarists Gideon Bensen and Jack Moffitt. 

Mid-set gave everyone a breather with the slow, understated softness of Two Tone Melody; Manfredi’s clear, almost breathy vocals in stark contrast to the raw rock goddess we had seen earlier. The rest of the night was as energetically charged as to be expected, with manic dancing, rolling on the floor and cheeky wiggles from Manfredi interspersed by a slightly unnerving tendency to stop all movement and look down the barrel of the gun at nothing in particular. They finished the set leaving fans wrung out and high from dancing, begging shamelessly for more.