Live Review: Lambchop, Antonia & The Lazy Susans, Jack R Reilly

Early arrivals were privy to opening sets from local acts Jack R Reilly and Antonia & The Lazy Susans. The former showed a fine line in intimate, emotionally open and vocally impressive singer-songwriter fare over sparse and haunting electric guitar. In contrast, Antonia & The Lazy Susans were a confusing choice to open for a band like Lambchop. They delivered emo/indie guitar pop with an overdose of angst. The songs were overwrought and simplistic in form, a total contrast to the act they preceded.

This was a stripped-down version of Lambchop - a band who have always had a fluid line-up revolving around frontman Kurt Wagner. On this tour the configuration was bassist Matt Swanson, pianist Tony Crow and Wagner on guitar, laptop and vocal manipulations.

Opening with a trio of songs from last year's Flotus album they established the sonic palette for the evening where basslines formed pulsing, smooth and febrile shapes over beds of digital beats and textural clicks, beeps and washes of sound. Crow's piano was a revelation of cascading notes that fluttered and danced through melodic passages, light of touch but beautifully melancholic and immersive. Front and centre was Wagner, the conductor and storyteller with his reading light, vocal unit, laptop and guitar. Using AutoTune, delay, reverb and self-sampling effects, he conjured up a playful and endlessly fascinating take on the role of the lead vocalist. Older songs such as The Decline Of Country And Western Civilization and 2B2 were recast in the Flotus mold without losing any of their grace and poetic weight - an example of how, even though this was a new iteration of Lambchop and quite a distance for their country-soul origins, it was still uniquely identifiable as the same band.

As the set progressed the players seemed to relax into their roles, particularly Crow with his often hilarious quips, such as setting his phone to vibrate in his pocket at various moments during the show, to keep himself awake. It was certainly a show that traded on a minimalist sound that recalled Brian Eno, but at the same time it embraced and reinterpreted various influences such as the textural and melodic inventiveness of Arthur Russell and the lush R&B of D'Angelo. In keeping with that, they concluded with a uniquely Lambchop take on Prince's When You Were Mine. This was post-modern soul music at its most compelling.