FoalsPunters were lined up and ready to both escape the cold and windy weather outside and to catch a killer Sunday night of live music. Despite being fresh off a 30-hour plane trip from performing in New Orleans, Melbourne indie pop six-piece Alpine displayed a tonne of energy as they got to work warming the audience up with tight renditions of Lovers 2 and Hands. Vocalists Pheobe Baker and Lou James danced around wildly onstage, coming out onto the lip of the stage to help get the crowd dancing more on single Gasoline before retiring to most likely go back and pass out in their hotel rooms.
A short time later, the stage became dark as English indie rock Foals prepared to take to the stage. The stage's strobe lights began flashing over a sequenced electronic melody that sped up as the intensity of the lights increased. The band arrived onstage after a few minutes, launching into the aptly-titled Prelude from their latest album Holy Fire with some perfectly executed intricate guitar work between lead singer Yannis Philippakis and guitarist Jimmy Smith. Up next was older track Total Life Forever track and then set highlight My Number which featured a much funkier intro and a lot of hand-clapping from both Philippakis and the audience. “We've heard you like to party,” said Philippakis. “Well, this song's about being an animal.” With that, the group got heavy on new song Providence, drawing off the excitement of the audience to deliver the song with more power and intensity than the original studio version. Philippakis strutted about onstage during the song, jumping out onto the lip of the stage and manoeuvring the mess of speakers and cables while still perfectly executing the intricate guitar parts for the song.
The crowd stood silent for fan favourite Spanish Sahara, which gradually builded to an exciting finale and drew one of the biggest responses of the night from the crowd. Philippakis jumped onto an extra tom drum to add some extra percussion to older track Electric Bloom before deciding to jump off stage and into the crowd while the band continued with the synthy, psychedelic jam.
When he finally appeared back onstage and the song reached its climax, Philippakis threw his mic stand into the audience while Smith started sawing his guitar on a nearby speaker, delivering a howl of noise and feedback before the band left the stage. They returned shortly thereafter to perform the encore, launching into the hard-rocking single Inhaler from the new album. “It's so good to come across to the most isolated city in the world and play to you guys,” said Philippakis before the band capped off the night with live favourite Two Steps, Twice.
