Jake BuggA rowdy sold-out crowd were easily placated by the garage noise of Drunk Mums. The Melburnian band threw out short bursts of jangly guitar rock tinged with strong Australian-accented lyrics as they swayed to and fro in jerky movements.
Yet despite their valiant attempt at inciting pandemonium, the atmosphere turned positively electric upon Jake Bugg's arrival in the spotlight. His unassuming presence and bold choice to open with the quiet Fire, to which the audience immediately sang along, proved his stage presence to be greater than the sum of its parts. Backed by a bassist and drummer, Bugg amiably played most songs from his self-titled debut, peppering the set with a couple of new tunes, the second of which, the country-flecked Slumville Sunrise, was received with rapturous applause, as Bugg performed a series of finger gymnastics on guitar that belie his age.
Stoic and radiating surety, Bugg spoke few words and remained unaffected by the hecklers or the audience's apparent inability to maintain a hushed silence during the acoustic Country Song and Broken. The latter song had the muttering voices rising to a shivering crescendo in the final 'whoa', melding majestically with Bugg's wails.
In a night overflowing with singalongs, Two Fingers saw a sea of hand gestures being thrown into the air during the chorus. Taste It incurred a similar reaction, beer cups thrown overhead as Bugg's voice grew stronger and his band swelled around him boisterously. His quiet confidence led to a stellar rendition of Neil Young's Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black), his Northern English accent ringing out over a stark electric guitar composition. By the time the set closed out with the uplifting dancealong jig of Lightning Bolt, there was no doubt that the ordinary-looking boy on stage is set for extraordinary things.
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