Live Review: Mountain Goat Valley Crawl

It is a balmy evening in old Brisbane town as Fortitude Valley comes to life for the second annual Mountain Goat Valley Crawl.

Stretched across five of the city's best-loved live music venues — Black Bear Lodge, The Brightside, The Foundry, the Woolly Mammoth and The Zoo — the nascent annual event has made it its mission to fill the precinct with the sounds of some seriously excellent emergent and established acts of all walks, showcasing a range of brilliant local and interstate talent in the process. It's a little bit like a super-mini BIGSOUND Festival, and it's a welcome inclusion on the gig-going calendar.

When you’ve got five amazing stages, it’s hard to pick who to see first. Despite an early intention to head to the Woolly Mammoth to see Top Dollar, instinct kicks in and suggests the evening should start instead with the burgeoning melodies of Sweater Curse at The Foundry. The three-piece features members of several influential bands from around Brisbane: Chris Lagenberg of Vulture Circus, Rei Bingham of Youth Allowance, and Monica Sottile of Sleep Club. Thinking back to the first time we crossed paths with Sweater Curse, they've always blown their audiences away with their charm and evocative, jangly melodies that can stop a listener in their tracks. Tonight is no exception — with no disrespect to Top Dollar, the decision to kick off here instead was a good one, as Sweater Curse leave their crowd so spellbound and humbled that it’s hard to tear away.

But tear away we must, and race to the newly renovated Zoo to see WHALEHOUSE. Also a three-piece, these ladies sure pack a punch. They belt out tune after tune, seeping energy and excitement and attitude. They’ve been playing a bunch of shows around town lately and it’s no wonder — you just want to get up and dance with them, singing every word back, especially to infectious sing-along numbers such as Sexy Whale Beach Party and Fresh Bread. Frontwomen Zoe Wilson and Amy-Rose Lawson take turns singing and playing, swapping out every few songs and showing off their extensive range. Drummer Sonya Chamberlain keeps up a steady stream of chatter between songs and incites conversation with not only the other girls but also the audience.

Back upstairs at The Foundry, Brisbane up-and-comers Future Haunts are plying a polished set of tunes to their decent-size audience. These dudes aren't doing anything groundbreaking with their refined take on the genre, but they're clearly accomplished musicians nonetheless, deftly serving up a stream of post-garage indie-rock goodness that leaves us smiling, swaying and impressed, making a mental note to investigate their oeuvre more deeply once we're back home.

Meanwhile, back at The Zoo are the newly revitalised and blossoming Average Art Club. Since their move to Brisbane in late 2015, the collective have gone through a slight change in members, but have been wowing friends and fans for the last few months with their fresh new outfit, featuring newbies Willow Nicholls on guitar and vocals and Thomas Kinsella on synth and keys, as well as original members Lisa Murr on guitar and vocals, Hannah Maddock on bass and vocals, and Kurt Abel on drums. Their set is a heady concoction of psychedelic rock and indie-punk, the three frontwomen taking turns singing and swapping guitars every now and then, taking the best out of all of them to creative a creative, overwhelming performance. They’re quickly garnering speed in their rush to the forefront of the Brisbane music scene.

In the cool, intimate surrounds of Black Bear Lodge — easily the most comfortable venue of the night, temperature-wise, largely due to their super-effective airconditioner — folk singer-songwriter Angharad Drake is serenading a small but dedicated group listening to her sublime brand of introspective mellifluence. Eventually flanked by a backing band of instrumentalists, Drake delivers a near-flawless set of dulcet, honey-dipped tunes that demonstrate a formidable grasp of the interplay between melody and harmony (alongside some pretty savvy capo use). She hits high points throughout with regularity and apparent ease, two of which include recent single Baby and another track, whose name escapes us, that hinges on the repeated refrain, 'Honey in the rock'. Really, though, Drake and her band offer up a gorgeous performance from top to tail.

An attempt to watch Melbourne's Pearls at Woolly Mammoth is aborted almost immediately due to the honestly unbearable heat hanging over the room. There is no airconditioning here, and only one of the two overhead fans appears to be on, for some reason. The whole situation is not aided by the significant number of people crammed into the space, and the rise in temperature is actually palpable from partway up the venue's stairs. Ultimately, although the band on stage are sounding superb, it proves too physically uncomfortable to endure for any significant length of time, so we depart, dispirited, less than three songs into their set — sorry, Pearls (and everyone else who played in the room, because the experience ends up striking the venue from our hit list entirely for the rest of the evening). 

Instead, we head back to The Foundry for a serve of drony psychedelia from Dreamtime. This respected four-piece trades in "extended meditative jams", which is the exact opposite of what we need right now, honestly. Multi-layered, expansive, meandering soundscapes dominate their seemingly well-rehearsed set, though it would be dishonest to describe any of it as particularly memorable, at least in a hooky sense. Not that any of that has hurt their attendance or general interest from elsewhere, mind you — the room is utterly packed for this group, and there are plenty of ears here clearly more attuned and enthralled by what they're serving up.

However, as the music wanders, so too does our attention, and pretty soon we decide we've had all we can take and roam across to The Brightside to take in something a little snappier and more digestible, from award-winning singer-songwriter Luke Daniel Peacock and his band. The acclaimed troubadour takes this festival-like opportunity to pepper his set with a bunch of new tunes, and he and his cohorts turn in an exemplary performance that coaxes the crowd right out of their shells to fill the room with an ebullience unlike anything else we've yet seen tonight. 

Well, until we get to The Zoo. As sweaty as ever, though still more bearable than the oven that was the Mammoth, the recently renovated venue welcomes young head-turner Mallrat, who steps out to a packed, rapturously receptive room. However, in stark contrast to her exuberant performance at Falls Festival over the new year, Mallrat is missing a vital spring in her step that steers the overall outing to a relatively flat landing. In fairness, it's not totally her fault — her vocals are buried in the mix, muddied and indecipherable for the majority of her performance, which is a real shame — but it's clear that the heat and discomfort is getting to her as well. She puts in a valiant effort nonetheless, as For Real gets things off to a bouncy start, while Tokyo Drift ticks the boxes to be the usual standout it always is, but, honestly, she's capable of so much better than this.

As the night wears on, it becomes increasingly difficult to actually treat the Valley Crawl as a 'crawl' in any real sense of the term. Once it passes the 10pm mark or so, leaving one venue results in lengthy waits to get in to several of the others involved in the event, with most seeing constant lines out the door for the remainder of the evening. Departing Mallrat, the queue for The Zoo's next performers, Butterfingers, is already starting to stretch down the block a bit — so, no, we sadly don't get back there to see the reunited Brisbane outfit, despite our initial best intentions.

(The exemplary efforts of our photographers must be mentioned here. Firstly, here's to Molly Burley, as she managed to provide visual documentation for Butterfingers' set as well as that of WAAX, both of whom proved difficult for the scribe side of things to get into. Secondly, but no less impressive, fellow snapper Markus Ravik braved the heat of the Woolly Mammoth on more than one occasion long after we'd tapped out. We seriously couldn't have done this without them.) 

Similarly, with a jaunt to watch Moses Gunn Collective totally out of the question (take it up with the Woolly Mammoth, seriously) and WAAX's show at The Foundry so packed that we haven't even a glimmer of hope of getting inside before they finish, we decide instead to opt for a late-night iced coffee to refuel, then amble back to The Brightside to wait for Polish Club to cap off our night. It ends up being one of the smartest calls we've made all evening, as we get in with relative ease and, more importantly, the Sydney duo let loose with an impossibly powerful and frenetic set of earnest, rough-edged, soul-steeped, garage rock excellence to an utterly packed room. It's sweaty, it's messy, and it's absolutely glorious. 

The deeply enthusiastic among the crowd hang back at The Brightside for the demented brilliance of Bris-182 — a wonderfully chaotic (and just a little self-indulgent) 12-member band busting out the songs of Blink-182 — but, otherwise, so comes to a close the second annual Mountain Goat Valley Crawl. 

Despite the odd setback, the entire event is evidently a resounding success, the silver lining to the cloud of those massive venue queues being, of course, that a great number of punters were obviously exceptionally keen to hear what this year's line-up had to offer. With a little more refinement in terms of placing and scheduling (sets were 45 minutes to an hour long, spaced 15 minutes apart), it's almost a certainty that the event will have this totally nailed in time for round three next year.