Live Review: Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Bloods & The Black Zeros

It was a bit of a clash of old and new for Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Ruban Neilson, as the two support bands at their show last night came out and delivered fun, fast-paced garage rock. The Black Zeros and Bloods were more similar to Neilson's previous band The Mint Chicks as both tore through their songs with enough energy to instill a new vigour into the awaiting crowd. Bloods was particularly impressive, fronted by two pocket-rockets, their impressive stamina onstage only matched by their charming songs.

It was no surprise then, when Unknown Mortal Orchestra came onstage in a fury of distorted noises and fuzzy blue light to open with Little Blu House, a few shoulders in the crowd slumped, disappointed that the tempo of the previous two bands had been downgraded to UMO's psychedelic band jams (or perhaps disappointed that they weren't seeing The Mint Chicks instead?).

That's not to say that there weren't plenty of people in the crowd super happy to watch this trio at work, and they did deliver a consistent set, playing an array of older and new tracks, as well as Pink Floyd's Lucifer Sam. Newbies One At A Time and So Good At Being In Trouble translated better in a live setting, both gaining needed energy and push. However tracks like Ffunny Ffriends and Swim And Sleep Like A Shark (despite the latter getting the loudest response from the crowd) were overshadowed by the loudness of the band and by Neilson's vocals, which at times were so muffled that it looked like he was just moving his mouth without any sound coming out. Unlike on their new album, the boys didn't attempt to pull back and strip down their songs for a live show, and without that conservatism, the songs sound loud but fall flat, and had a number of fans looking just a little bored.