Live Review: Something For Kate, Ben Salter

The Metro was a busy place on Friday night. While young rock bands were making as much noise as possible in The Lair, in the main room, first Ben Salter and then Something For Kate showed off their considerable songwriting skills and an appreciation for the music of others. It's probably too early to call it a trend, but both acts on this bill performed a couple of covers. Salter chose Teenage FBI by Guided By Voices and Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen while Something For Kate threw Sam Brown's Stop and World Party's Ship Of Fools into their set.

Ben Salter's strong, rich voice was the centrepiece of his set. Having refined his lyrical style, Salter just needed to provide a little more variety, though the covers did help to add a little less melancholy to the set.

According to Something For Kate's frontman Paul Dempsey, Sydney provided a “warm and wonderful welcome” for the band's first headline tour in over four years. Yet the band certainly paid the audience back in kind. This was a tour to support the band's new release and there was certainly a lot of said album, Leave Your Soul To Science, on show. But the band also went back to the beginning, closing the set with a thrilling Pinstripe, off their first album, and providing a new/old balance with favourites such as Deja Vu and Cigarettes And Suitcases. Additional live players Pip Branson on guitar and John Hedigan mostly on keys added depth to the sound and worked well when they added harmonies.

Despite the time away, Something For Kate were incredibly tight and buzzed with an energy that showed they were definitely ready for the reunion.