Live Review: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Flume

In a flawless victory for Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, the Oxford Art Factory truly lost control during the final moments of his inaugural Sydney show. Several hundred bodies exorcised kilos of sweat, girls brandished lady bits and the support got his arse handed to him (pro tip: the crowd might love you, but bouncers don't give a shit) in a (hilariously) miscalculated attempt to party with the headliner.

After the ever reliable Future Classic DJs massaged our ears with their usual classy selections, Sydney blog hero du jour Flume opened with a disposable set of paint-by-numbers post-dubstep r'n'b. His production chops are fine and his work is slick. He's in demand and enjoys the attention with humility and hard work, but as a live act he's lacking. It was a “press play” affair with only light tweaks here and there. His focus moved from a decent interpretation of LA's hip hop scene to a brash fratstep marathon. He gleefully dropped crumbling bass passages like a GP drops a hammer on your knee: your body can't help reacting. It's effective but lazy – and that's what lies at the core of the argument against artists like Skrillex. There was little to connect Flume to his work save the minimal tinkering on his equally minimalist equipment and in the end it was a hollow experience that evaporated as soon as he left the stage.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs is the brainchild of Orlando Higginbottom from Oxford. Despite his dinosaur costume (and his glitter guns) he's not one for useless theatrics. It's all carefully choreographed to create a character silly enough to provoke friendly amusement but stops short of caricature (*cough*deadmau5*cough*).

He had arranged his various machines in a protective barrier around him and likewise his soft unassuming voice hid behind a wall of sparkling synth and bouncing electronic doodling. The juxtaposition between quiet performer and blistering performance was striking, but any details like that faded away as the night grew increasingly unstable, eventually spilling over in a glorious final 20 minutes of anarchy.

Higginbottom has a great ear for music, allowing him to jump from 2-step to garage to big beat to rave to electro pop, blending them seamlessly (big beat is fairly relentless for example, while 2-step is fidgety - matching the energy is tricky). The show's secret weapon wasn't the impressive pop songwriting or the great musicianship. There was no constant push-pull mechanism going on. It was simpler than that: build consistent tension for about 40 minutes and follow that with the most intense release for the final 20. The place exploded. For 20 solid minutes, the Oxford Art Factory zoned out in a bursting moment of beer-fuelled mayhem.

Well played Higginbottom; well played.