Live Review: Orsome Welles, Qlaye Face, Transience, The Valley Ends

Melbourne band The Valley Ends open proceedings tonight, and proceed to hold the growing crowd spellbound with their laid-back, moody, almost jazzy alt-rock. Frontman Tim D'Agostino struggles slightly with some of the higher-end notes initially, but then hits his stride after his voice has warmed up and nails it. Their stuff has a semi-experimental feel to it, with strange soundscapes and snaky rhythms, and they provide a low-key but impressive opening to this special evening of rock.

Hard-hitting proggers Transience take the stage and they lift the tempo and vibe immediately with their more traditional take on modern prog rock. Frontman Robert Cuzens is dead on the money, singing, screaming and howling like his very life depends on it, and the band behind combine sweet finesse, technical wizardry and bludgeoning power in equal measures. Closer Ocean is riveting in its intensity and dynamics.

The running order of the bands tonight makes for an interesting, down-up-down-up dynamic, with Qlaye Face onstage next. After the frontal assault that is Transience, the dark, cerebral ambience of this Melbourne experimental alt-rock four-piece creates another stark contrast. It's been interesting to chart the development of a band like this over the last year or so, in a live sense. They have come out of themselves a lot more, are less introverted and introspective in their approach to putting on a show for an audience, while maintaining their idiosyncratic sound, and this makes for a more entertaining, more lively live show.

The name Orsome Welles is slowly but steadily growing in notoriety and profile in Aussie rock circles, and their current EP and subsequent tour, of which this show is the climax, should only add to that growth. After a brief acoustic intro, the band explodes onto the stage with the classy power that they are known for, and the packed-out Evelyn is enthralled for the next hour plus, right through to the punchy, crunchy closer Home Sweet Home.  

These guys are becoming consummate entertainers, especially vocalist Michael Vincent Stowers, who conducts band and audience from the front of the stage like a nuggetty bald-headed maestro, and his voice just gets stronger and sweeter the longer this band goes on. And the band behind him are as tight as a clenched fist and punch unfailingly as one.  

The love in the room this night is palpable, and Orsome Welles' Melbourne launch is nothing short of a triumph.