Live Review: mewithoutYou. Elliot the Bull, Stranger Things Have Happened, Sincerely, Grizzly

mewithoutYou are considered one of the most influential bands in emo, as well as in countless other genres.

Paramore’s Hayley Williams has said their second album, Catch For Us The Foxes, made her want to start a band. Influencing current bands utilising spoken word such as La Dispute and Listener, mewithoutYou are a band that has existed for a long time and will probably be remembered for a long time more. This was mewithoutYou’s first time in Adelaide and they were set to play the Adelaide UniBar, which is quite a large venue. The venue looked quite empty to begin with, and didn’t really start to fill up until just before mewithoutYou took to the stage.

Adelaide locals Sincerely, Grizzly were the first to take the large UniBar stage. Playing through a set of their math-pop-indie-rock to a fairly empty room didn’t seem to curb their enthusiasm. They played tight as usual, but the vocalist was the standout of the band, delivering a high-quality performance. Finishing with the last song off their latest release, Kafkaesque, Sincerely, Grizzly finished well to an appreciative audience, despite how small it was.

Stranger Things Have Happened are a mostly instrumental band also hailing from Adelaide. They displayed incredible instrumental ability, beautiful dynamics and evoked emotion with their pleasant-sounding tunes. Despite having interesting math-rock parts and some appealing time signature changes, the music seemed to not be complex enough to be purely instrumental and it sounded somewhat like hearing the demos of a band before the vocals are laid down. When there were vocals it sounded incredible and worked exceptionally well. Stranger Things Have Happened are a band to keep an eye on this year.

Supporting mewithoutYou for their full Australian tour, NSW Central Coast band Elliot The Bull came onstage to a still very empty room. Playing through a set of indie-pop and obviously Radiohead-influenced songs, with a combination of instruments that included one member just using an MPC to seemingly play the odd sample as well as play a kick drum at the exact same time as the drummer. There was too much focus on electronic instruments that didn’t add anything to their sound and simply sounded out of place.  It sounded quite messy at times and ultimately they ended up sounding like a pub rock band. Finishing their set as Radiohead came over the PA seemed a fitting end.

The room suddenly looked quite full as mewithoutYou took the stage, the crowd waiting in anticipation. Opening their set with A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains, the crowd bopped their heads along softly, finishing their first song to soft applause before launching straight into January 1979. Suddenly the room filled with life as people moved and sang along with arguably their most well-known song. The rest of their set was a mix of both new and old songs, with at least one song from each album. Every time the first note of one of their earlier tracks was played, the crowd instantly cheered and clapped in excitement. They delivered an absolutely incredible performance of Silencer that had the entire crowd moving, finishing to easily the loudest applause of the night. A brief interlude had the guitarist telling the crowd that having enjoyed his day in Adelaide, he was going to name his future child after the city. mewithoutYou finished their set with some more recent songs, overall showing Adelaide they can perform their newer indie tracks with style, as well as play songs from their emo roots with all the emotion and more that anybody would expect from this crucial band.