Live Review: Birds Of Tokyo, Regular John & The Guppies

Last week Birds Of Tokyo finally cracked No.1 on the ARIA Charts with their new album, March Fires. The album may seem like a departure from the heavier rock of the early days, but put these songs in a live setting and they crackle and burn with all the fire of the Birds Of Tokyo of old.

Barely out of their teens, The Guppies blended the jangle of late '90s shoegaze with grunge. With the vocals buried low in the mix the band needed a little more stage presence (and a more cohesive image) to sell their developing sound, but these are the things that improve over time and the songs definitely showed potential.

Regular John took a couple of songs to get their mix right, but when they did, their dark pysch explorations were worth paying attention to. Songs blew out into thrilling set pieces. But even so, they were little match for the headliners.

Playing few live shows in the 18 months since they started working on this album, the five members of Birds Of Tokyo reintroduced themselves to their Sydney fans in the best way possible. Though the mix of frontman Ian Kenny's vocals sounded a little off from up in the balcony seats, it did little to diminish the overall impact of their epic set.

It's testament to the band that two of the night's most euphoric moments came during new songs. The first, during When The Night Falls Quiet, was designed for a stadium, the Enmore stage barely big enough to contain all the energy that was being generated, while the second, White Leaves, led into set closer, Plans. With leaves the colours of the album art drifting through the video screens set up around the band, the tight mix of Glenn Sarangapany's keys and Adam Sparks' cinematic guitar hit just the right blissful chord. Though early singles, Broken Bones and Silhouettic, fired up the crowd early and more recent hits, Plans, Lanterns and Wild At Heart were still to come, it was these new songs in particular that captured just why this band has become such an unstoppable rock force.