Live Review: M83, Japanese Wallpaper

When M83 announced the follow-up to 2011's monumental double album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, everyone held their breath. It was an audacious record (Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness-level audacious) that broke through into the public consciousness, and all the nuclear-powered nostalgia pulsing at the core of each song spoke to a lot of people. Endless licensing deals spread Anthony Gonzales' material far and wide, and the result is a body of work with an unusually strong resonance. His next album was only ever going to be a lesser sibling. Their show at Enmore Theatre, in many respects, was similar. Their Hurry Up, We're Dreaming tour was a triumph, a spectacular blast of energy and love from a band on a white-hot streak. They also still had Morgan Kibby.

Melbourne bedroom producer Japanese Wallpaper opened. The young Melbournite (also known as Gab Strum) has a twee sound that didn't sit right next to the bombast and majesty of M83. His songs don't ebb and flow, and they have no crest or catharsis, so although his set might have sounded fine on a pair pf headphones the songs quickly evaporated into the air almost as soon as they finished floating out of the speakers on stage.

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming made up the bulk of the main set. It wasn't a huge surprise, but what was fun was the way they've tinkered with the tunes in the interim. We Own The Sky is a lush, purple synth ballad that they transformed into a sparkling Balearic dance track. The neon cock-rock posturing of Steve McQueen was sanded down into a far more lightweight piece that felt more comfortable as a communal experience. Other songs like the chest-thumping Intro felt just as triumphant, just as electric, just as exhilarating as ever. And Wait definitely still had some magic in it.

Let's talk about Kaela Sinclair. Kibby was integral to M83 for a long time; she was a key player in Saturdays = Youth and Hurry Up, We're Dreaming's success, and had a formidable stage presence on tour. She left to work on a solo project, White Sea, and her successor, Sinclair, has big shoes to fill. She has lungs and knows how to use them, but there was something missing, a spark, something Kibby laid claim to that Sinclair never really found last night. The songs she sang were not her own, so maybe that played into it.

They finally closed with a deep cut, Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun, and, although it wasn't the transcendent experience we enjoyed previously, M83 really nailed the idea of concert as celebration, a thunderous affirmation of youth that applies to everyone. Brava!