LIVE REVIEW: Snakehips @ The Liberty Social, Melbourne
As a part of their Australian sideshow tour for OutsideIn, UK duo SNAKEHIPS played a show at The Liberty Social in Melbourne.
There are many ways you stumble across new music. Soundcloud recommendations, iTunes charts, the radio, through friends or streaming services like Guvera, Spotify or Rdio.
The list goes on and on and possibly never ends. For me, my biggest source for discovering new acts has been to keep an eye on the acts The Liberty Social is booking. So, when Two Bright Lakes and Liberty Social get together, you're in for something special.
SNAKEHIPS are super cute UK duo James and Ollie, who got the spotlight with remixes of Bondax and Wild Belle about a year ago. 4 months ago they released On & On and Make It, with a combined play count of over 600,000 on their Soundcloud since, not bad for a self release! On & On even featured our very own Aussie vocalist George Maple. Mostly, their sound is a a funky, electronic mix of hip hop beats and soul - not unlike my favourite artist Henry Krinkle.
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When they graced the stage, complete with camera crew, visuals on a projector in the background and their dancing boots - it was clear that everyone in the room was there for them. They had an amazing stage presence and when they played On & On the already very active crowd lost it. It was a really cool atmosphere to be a part of and they brought some real light to Melbournes grungiest basement. The applause after each song was unbelievable and a pretty rare sight when you're not watching a band.
They only played for an hour which was a disappointment not only to me, but to the crowd that chanted "ONE MORE SONG!" so many times you almost felt bad for the next DJs. Luckily, even though SNAKEHIPS were a very tough act to follow, they absolutely smashed it and the crowd seemed to lose their disappointment in an unsuccessful encore pretty quickly. My highlight was Ameries 'One Thing' getting mixed into 50 Cents '21 questions' - both songs totally underplayed in clubs imo.
Back to SNAKEHIPS, a part from absolutely killing their set - were super lovely dudes. They had a lot of time for their fans, pausing during their gig to shake hands with the people frantically trying to touch them in the front row and taking photos of the crowd losing their minds. This was a refreshing thing to see in a day and age where some acts leave their gigs as soon as they finish playing - on the contrary, you could find these guys next to the bar arguing about how to pronounce Patron for most of the night.
Overall, I recommend you give these guys a listen and with a promise of gracing our shores again next year, I'll be keeping an eye on their Facebook page in anticipation and definitely suggest that you do to.
Words by Taylaa Ayliffe
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