Live Review: Going Steady Festival

Going Steady Festival was a great way to celebrate the achievements of Going Steady Music. The festival featured a strong line-up, boasting San Francisco's Moon Duo, Brisbane's Dreamtime, Sydney's Dead Radio and locals Glass Skies, The Dunes, Black Coral and Sons Of Zoku.

The Dunes played well, their recent addition, who uses analogue synthesisers to create distorted sound vibrations over the steady drone of Adam Vanderwerf's bass lines, is really coming into his own now, making the band a strong and quantified whole. A new song found its way into their set that showed The Dunes exploring rock'n'roll flavours, a fresh and groovy change from their comfortable territory.

Dreamtime were one of the highlights of the evening. The four-piece go hand in hand with The Dunes, with their set feeling like a spiritual continuation to the evening. Dreamtime shine with their unique sound, capturing a psych-rock niche that straddles imagery of ancient battle scenes and being swamp-lost simultaneously. Their unconventional approach to psychedelic music make them a band who really stands out from the pack, especially in a pocket of time where Tame Impala are ripe for imitation.

Glass Skies have gathered a lot of praise for their second EP Fly On, Children and their live show is a surefire force to be reckoned with. There was a great atmosphere inside Jive as people danced and headbanged to the tough groove-laden tunes of the local four-piece's psych blitzkrieg. The show came to a ferocious end with Josh Van Looy soloing with nothing but his pearly chompers, a great way to warm up for the legendary Moon Duo.

The San Francisco psych outfit delivered, and the people of Adelaide where ready to receive. Moon Duo sounded delicious, with their wall of sound completely enveloping the audience. A combination of veteran performance and dynamite sound engineering culminated in absolute greatness. Moon Duo take drones and incorporate mid-paced rock'n'roll. It's hard-hitting and Sanae Yamada plays one of the deepest rhythm sections to come from a synthesiser you will ever hear, there's no need for bass at all. This is combined with John Jeffrey's krautrock clockwork drumming and eye-popping limb independence and Ripley Johnson's neverending guitar shredding.

Going Steady Festival was Adelaide's psych-rock show of the year!