Live Review: Buoys Of Summer

Yacht-rock. It's a thing. For the uninitiated, it's a term used to describe the oh-so-smooth sounds that would have been purring out of your FM radio way back in the mid-'70s to early '80s — well-crafted, melodic, sophisticated pop songs. If you're thinking along the lines of Steely Dan and Toto, you're well and truly on the right track. While at the time these artists were topping the charts and winning awards left, right and centre, it must be said that as the years passed many people looked back on these pop gems with more than a little disdain and they were, for the most part, banished to the purgatory of classic FM stations.

Formed back in 2013 by a group of like-minded Perth musicians, with a swag of awards between them in their own rights, Some Like It Yacht have been bringing these classic sounds back to live audiences, and if the sea of captain's hats and Hawaiian shirts crammed into the big top on Scarborough Beach for their show at this year's Fringe Festival is any indication, the times are most definitely a-changin'.

Opening up the show with Ace's 1974 hit How Long, Some Like It Yacht had the crowd grooving along from the get go with their silky harmonies and obvious musical chops. Sharing vocal duties throughout the show, the eight-piece took their audience on a musical journey through what were once-guilty musical pleasures, including Little River Band's Reminiscing, America's Sister Golden Hair and The Doobie Brothers' What A Fool Believes.

Make no mistake, this was not just a trip down memory lane for those of us that grew up listening to these songs on our parents' radios, as was evidenced by the wide age range of those in attendance. As they continued on through hits such as Hold The Line (Toto) and Baby Come Back (Player), Some Like It Yacht had the majority of the crowd, both young and not so young, up and dancing along. 

Sadly only performing for an hour, the band grooved their way through Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle before finishing off the evening with Toto's Rosanna and Africa to loud applause from a crowd that, it must be said, would have happily kept dancing for as long as the band kept playing.

After this evening's triumphant, energetic performance, Some Like It Yacht are well worth seeing anytime they perform, and not just as an excuse to wear your Hawaiian shirts out in public. Top class musicians playing top class songs. It's yacht-rock.... and it's cool.