Live Review: Circles, Orsome Welles, Dyssidia

This is a special night.

We're celebrating the birthday of the most excellent Wild Thing Presents, a Melbourne-based rock, metal and progressive booking agency and management firm that has been doing fabulous work for five years. The early spring evening in Melbourne is cold, but the line-up is lean: three of Australia's finest progressive heavy outfits that warm things up in The Workers beautifully.  

Blistering Adelaide-based prog-metal outfit Dyssidia were over here recently for the James Norbert Ivanyi tour, but they are welcome here anytime - especially since they are a band that have seriously got it together in the last few years. They have found their voice, their stride, and their vibe, and this is typified in their idiosyncratically aggressive frontman Mitch Brackman, who has elevated himself to a new level in recent times. The band behind him are tight and technical: all five members look and sound ultra-confident, and their 30-minute set whizzes by in a frenzy of notes, riffs, sweeping majestic leads and highly active percussive thunder, all tied together by beautifully structured, epic-length tunes.  

Melbourne's Orsome Welles make an enormous but classy racket, with their excellent tunes driven by nuclear-strength grooves and given an uplifting melodic counterpoint by frontman Michael Vincent Stowers. The overall effect of this band in a live setting is that of a highly accessible musical freight train barrelling through the night, and the burgeoning crowd lap it all up and sing along to every word.

Another significant element of tonight's proceedings is that it's the first gig for the mighty Circles since their iconic frontman Perry Kakridis departed. But, if tonight is anything to go by, they are not skipping a beat. The band have opted to replace Kakridis from within their ranks, rather than recruit a whole new frontman. Guitarist Ben Rechter - himself a relatively recent addition to the band, but a highly accomplished vocalist in his own right - has stepped up to the plate to fill the massive void left by Kakridis. And while he is ever so slightly nervous/tentative in the very early stages, ultimately he rises to the occasion and performs admirably. You can tell already it's an excellent choice. This band in a live setting are an absolute tour de force. In fact, they are one of Australia's most impressive live bands, and in losing a frontman they have lost none of their potency.

This night is about whether Circles will survive this loss. Well, they are not just surviving, they are prospering. Huge things are afoot for this band in 2018. 

Wild Thing Presents do what they do, in a tough market, with intelligence and a real street-wise nous. The rooms that play host to their gigs are generally full, or close to, and this night is no exception. And not only are the rooms full, they are full of highly satisfied punters.