Live Review: Ali Barter, IV League, Hollie Joyce

Hollie Joyce sets a ripping pace. From the crooning pop-soul of Bruise Me to feminist anthem Dumb Bitch her voice swells from sweet to stormy in an instant. "The worst that will happen is I'll spit on you," she jokes as she invites us to come closer for a softer song, Bumble Bee. Joyce's abandon is infectious and her band is great too.

IV League are hard not to love. From the first jangly chords of Sylvia and Bella Venutti's melodic "ooh-oohing" we are all smiles. Varsity starts out shoegazey, but, with the drums and bass driving the way, it grows in intensity and ebullience. And Bleached, with its glittering hooks and vocal onslaught, is a stadium-sized anthem.

Ali Barter opens with the sprightly Please Stay then kicks into overdrive with Light Them On Fire. It's the second of two sell-out shows at the Social promoting her album A Suitable Girl and she's determined to make it huge. "Last night we had a mosh pit," she says, "crowd surfing, a guy took his shirt off. I'm expecting big things." We do our best, as Live With You's deft guitar and brooding vocals build to a ferocious climax. "I went on a holiday with a boy," Barter says by way of introducing Tokyo, "and he was the wrong boy." She sets aside her guitar and commits herself to the lyrical journey: "I run away but I'm not too proud." It's touching. Then she retrieves her guitar and launches into the atmospheric slow build of The Captain.

Barter's band is so precise during Hypercolour they seem like a feat of mechanical engineering. Nonetheless, moments later Barter tells them to "fuck off" ("Just joking, I love them") so she can do Community solo. There's a pause while she toys with her tuning keys, but she gives up: "If Cat Power can play out of tune, so can I,"  and she throws herself into another earnest but soulful song. 

"Now we start having fun," jokes the bass player as the band returns. We hear the roots of American punk and Britpop in the noisy double shot of Cigarette and One Foot In, while Far Away is an anthem, Barter's voice weaving around jags of drum and guitar. For an encore they're going to do a cover, someone requests Limp Bizkit, but no, it's Weezer's Say It Ain't So. It goes off. They close with Girlie Bits, and members of Melbourne Indie Voices join them on stage to lead us in the epic, ironic refrain: "You don't understand what it's like to be a man." It's a spine-tingling finale.