Live Review: Mac DeMarco, Scotdrakula, Jesse Davidson

Adelaide's Jesse Davidson opened the night, gawky but charming, backed by a nimble drummer, and proceeded to charm the pants off the excited crowd with his soulful voice and classic songwriting. Big Bois Gotta Eat was an up-tempo number with a simple sort of lo-fi psych quality about it, perhaps reminiscent of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, whilst another tune saw Davidson's drummer whip out a trumpet and lay down some gorgeous textures. Something about his set felt like Ray Charles viewed through the lens of modern indie-rock, and while his glasses made him look like your friend's younger brother, his tunes were 20/20.
ScotDrakula's yelpy garage-rock, in contrast, felt somewhat deliberate, and worked on, lacking the effortless confidence of Jesse Davidson. But their mid-tempo four-chord rock'n'roll ticked all the boxes – imagine what Lil' Elvis Jones would be doing now that he's in his 20s – and eventually they had a room full of people tapping their toes, even if some of them were just doing it out of impatience.
It's a dirty little secret that Sydney crowds can occasionally kind of suck. Mac DeMarco and band gave the sold out Oxford Art Factory crowd a gentle reminder that it's actually okay to have fun at a show. The band's goofy humour and energy onstage was totally infectious, as their set hopped between DeMarco's pitch-perfect jangly slacker-pop and a ridiculous assortment of onstage antics: silly accents, chants of “tits out for the boys”, and more. Keeping things light, the band tightly powered through favourites like the uber melodic Ode To Viceroy and the warm Cooking Up Something Good, whilst technical hiccups were covered up with impromptu banter that showed off the band's charisma and chemistry. The set culminated in a bizarre, decades-spanning 15-minute medley of covers, from Brubeck to Beatles to Rammstein, which left the crowd chanting with giddy grins for more. This reviewer has rarely been in a crowd that felt quite this satisfied.