Live Review: Poppongene, The Baudelaires, Ali E

Upstairs at The Gasometer Hotel, Ali E supplies the bandroom with bottom-heavy fuzz guitar, providing a dense, thorny bed for her luscious alto vocal. The sound is lovingly murky — post-country and post-punk — but based on deceptively crisp songwriting. More please.

Presumably named for the French poet and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe, we're geared up for some The Raven levels of gothic from grunge-pop four-piece The Baudelaires. And sure enough we hear Rated R-era Queens Of The Stone Age from the opening big, stolid riff.

It's less than a week since Poppongene blew this scribe's mind playing support for Weyes Blood at Northcote Social Club. Their brief, swirly set was like a dream (or a trip) that was over all too soon. Needless to say we're pretty excited to catch the last show of their January residency at this venue. It's Invasion Day eve but there's no politics tonight, just pure escapism with a psychedelic '60s-pop vibe. The solo project for vocalist/guitarist Sophie Treloar has us thinking of everyone from The Shangri-Las to The Beatles, although opening song Belgravey also channels Courtney Barnett with its somnambulant pace and outer-suburban name-dropping. All G boosts the tempo, bringing some levity to the growing humidity in the room. The ultra-psychedelic Do It Girl features some seriously hazy guitar work and we find ourselves staring dazedly at the few stray pink balloons twitching about on the ceiling (leftovers from a recent 21st, perhaps?). A languid offering brings us back to earth with its finger-clicking bridge and breathy-sweet a cappella vocal.

Squint during another Poppongene song and it might really be The Shangri-Las, transported from 1964 New York to this stage in 2017 Collingwood. The song channels The Leader Of The Pack right down to the hammy spoken interjections. There's no mention of candy stores, however, although the next song — dedicated to Treloar's friend "Maddie", who apparently is in the front row — does refer to eating heart-shaped cakes. Treloar takes a moment to plug the customised tote bags on sale at the merch stand before rolling out Esky. We're busy marvelling at how good Treloar's band is — the contrasting, walking bass and guitar lines locked in perfect sync, the drumming both busy and restrained — when all of a sudden it's over and they're packing their instruments away. The trip has been, again, all too brief.