Live Review: Gang Of Youths, I Know Leopard, Zefereli

Gang Of Youths

One of the most important aspects of live rock music is its ability connect you in a moment with hundreds of strangers, as you share a band's/artist's journey in an elegant culmination of flashing lights and driving basslines. Gang Of Youths encompassed all that we love about live music, attracting a crowd with an appetite for something epic.

Reminiscent of the jangly-indie-pop sounds of bands like San Cisco, Zefereli brought their own personal touch to the genre. If their dreamy tunes hadn't drawn enough attention, their cover of Eminem's Stan sure resulted in pricked ears and the first surge of energy for the night.

I Know Leopard have been bubbling away on the scene for a while now and it's always a pleasure watching them at work. Layers of sound filled the room and warmed the air. Their always-popular cover of TLC's Waterfalls revived the '90s R&B fan in all of us. Recent single Close My Eyes established the band's position on the "ones-to-watch" list for sure.

It's completely unbelievable that Gang Of Youths have only released one album, given the high standard of their talent. Every pair of ears in the room was well and truly mesmerised by a sound that expanded the venue's walls far beyond their physical capabilities, defying the laws of the universe and encompassing everything in its path.

David Le'aupepe's stage presence is an act in itself, his stare boring into the souls of each and every member of the audience and suddenly making everything in the world seem ok ("He's like a sexy Hagrid," someone suggested). He shared a heart-wrenching story about his wife's battle with cancer, reminding all of us that he is, in fact, merely human (which everyone had been doubting by this point). Knuckles White Dry left hardly an untouched heart in the room, drawing us all into his world for a few minutes.

Songs like Benevolence Riots and Restraint & Release were enhanced by the band's touching humility. Old single Radioface was met with hands raised as if in prayer for the semi-religious experience that was the band's hypnotising presence on stage. "Closing" the set with Magnolia and seriously closing the set with Vital Signs, Gang Of Youths left a lingering buzz in the room that everyone would surely carry with them for the rest of the night.

Gang Of Youths, it was a pleasure. Thank you.