Live Review: Animals As Leaders, Plini, Nick Johnston

What a mindboggling night of all-instrumental progressive music, with virtually no pesky vocals getting in the way of the technical riffage, off-kilter, odd-time grooves and blistering fretwork. That said, the night starts off a little more on the simple side with Nick Johnston. His grooving rock jams are relatively straightforward, in beautiful contrast to the insanity that is to follow, and he shreds bluesily and tastefully. This scribe would like to see a little more personality flowing off the stage, especially considering the relative simplicity of the music, but Johnston and his band do what they do extremely well.

After repeated forays into overseas markets and many shows under his belt, Sydney wonderboy Plini is now becoming way, way more than just a guitar-playing prodigy. He is now a consummate all-round entertainer with his playing, his excellent band (who are all close to being as good on their individual instruments as the man himself) and his overall live performance. Of course, it's his soaring compositions that are the prime feature of Plini's presentation as an artist; his tunes manage to be ultra-catchy, emotionally resonant and spellbindingly compelling without the aid of vocals.

Just to be a touch picky (and maybe this depends where you stand in the venue), but when you have a player as illustriously skilful as this bloke, his lead lines need to stick out like the proverbial dog's bollocks. He makes that guitar speak, wail, howl and sing beautifully, in equal measures. This night they seem just a touch within themselves and a boost might be nice. But this is a small gripe when the music and performance are just so full of magic, beauty and wonder.

The now-legendary Animals As Leaders display complicated, mind-bending musicianship beyond all imagining. In fact, their levels of dexterity on their instruments are so very advanced it seems almost alien, aloof, untouchable. While someone like Plini is shitloads of fun to watch and puts a big cheesy smile on your dial (as well as being a prodigious player), Animals As Leaders transport you to some hyper-advanced super universe where musicians, writers and artists are paid to practice and pursue their art all day, where the inhabitants all pursue truly enlightened lives, where no one lives in want, in fear of their life or of being harassed simply for who or what they are.

Watching Animals As Leaders makes one actually believe that this kind of world is possible, if only for an hour and 20 minutes. Then you go back to your Facebook feed on the tram home and realise that Donald Trump is still President and One Nation is still a thing. But, political catastrophes aside, this band take music to extreme new levels, to places it's almost impossible to even imagine it going. But the beauty of it is that they still know how to apply the opened-out release that comes from shifting gears back to a fat, four-four groove. And they even change gears for an acoustic interlude about an hour into the set proper.

This is an evening of magnificently masterful musicianship, two superb Aussie openers and an American masterclass. Just beautiful.