Live Review: Birds Of Tokyo, Stillwater Giants & The Love Junkies

On the same weekend that their fourth full-length album debuted at number one on the ARIA charts, Birds Of Tokyo charmed the pants off of their hometown crowd. Opening up the night, support acts Stillwater Giants and The Love Junkies did well and it was good to see these up and coming local bands given the chance to show off their talents to such a big crowd.

But it was pretty clear this crowd was here for just one thing and that was Birds Of Tokyo. While the tastes and demographics of their fans may have changed over the last six years just as the direction of their music has, they have always received a warm welcome and tonight was no different. As they walked on stage in a cloud of blue lights and smoke, keyboardist Glenn Sarangapany opened their set up with a nice intro to one of their new songs, Liquid Arms. Another newbie followed with The Others and then the boys gave the crowd some of the old favourites, with Wild Eyed Boy, Broken Bones and Like Rain, which had Ian Kenny's trademark falsetto raising the bar for the crowd. The Gap had people singing along and new track March Fires was also a favourite. The blending of old and new continued throughout the night, the band playing enough new songs to show they translate well to a live stage, while also keeping the crowd happy with some old favourites. New song White Leaves is definitely going to a crowd pleaser, as it builds into such a mighty crescendo you can almost imagine it in some slick Hollywood romance movie, and of course, Plans had the biggest reaction of the night. Closing with the Lanterns, Kenny led the band into a rousing finale, which had the crowd clapping and cheering. Something they will probably hear a lot of this year.