Live Review: Dreamtime, Multiple Man, Gazar Strips

The Grand Central Hotel is well and truly packed for tonight's episode of the appropriately-titled Trainspotters series. Kicking things off, Gazar Strips take the stage noticeably later than scheduled, due to technical issues – kind of a recurring theme of the night. During the group's set the sound essentially goes off without a hitch, with their dark Cure-ish sound oozing just the right amount of reverb and chorus all throughout the mix. The potion on offer is a decent serving that works well to start off the night. 

Then, we reach Multiple Man... Well, kinda. For whatever reason, it takes the group over 45 minutes to set up. Great for the bar, but not so great for everyone else with the twins proving both to be the evil one, clearly agitated over the proceedings, and with due cause. Eventually the group, all bathed in green, get something happening but the sound once again falls on its face. Due to constant mic dropouts the band's visual, gothic hit Whipping Boy is in parts forced into pseudo-karaoke realms, with the rest of the set noticeably missing the delay. The band do their best in trying circumstances, and their frustration clearly translates into them putting in more effort. Sadly, the bar giving out free hats isn't nearly enough compensation for this unfortunate mix.   

Making their way back into town from a stint in the US of A teaching the yanks that all Australian psych bands aren't Tame, Dreamtime are back home and find themselves fronting an audience reveling in their newfound foreign fame. Set up time for the group is still quite tedious and long, but not as bad as with their predecessor. Things sound mostly good for Center Of Mind but shortly after this the mics once again lose the reverb and eventually dissolve wholly into the mix which completely destroys the loop-based intro to Baphomet; fortunately the mics aren't the only focal point, as the guitars tonight are a blitz upon the senses. Obviously at some point the group decide to ditch the running sheet and things spiral out into improv jams. A prime example of this is Sun, during which both guitarists Zac Anderson and Chris Campion lose their breakfast all over the fretboard with wahs and delays paving the way to those soul-jarring bends. The track spans at least 15 minutes, and coupled with the projections over the group's heads makes it the highlight of the night. 

With feedback closing the set at a wee bit past 1am, all bands on show tonight have performed well despite the conditions and this is a consensus amongst the insanely-packed audience. One can hope that tonight's mishaps will be a non-recurring theme to this otherwise awesome concert series. Free entry and free hat or not.