Live Review: Something For Kate

Ben Salter gracing The Zoo stage was once a regular sight, however, it's one that's becoming increasingly rare now. But although he's based out of Melbourne these days, it's clear that the curly shagged troubadour still feels right at home beneath the crimson curtain. Warming the room with plenty of cuts from his 2011 solo debut, The Cat, Salter also dips into his extensive band-based back catalogue with tracks such as The Gin Club's Ten Paces Away. The real treat of the set, though, is when Paul Dempsey casually strolls out to accompany Salter, filling out the high register on a cover of Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City, the two friends revelling in the song's boundaries.

Walking out to a second packed house in as many nights, Melbourne's favourite sons (and daughter) Something For Kate are quick to reacquaint themselves to Queensland audiences after a four-year absence from venues in these parts. Dempsey's gravel-pit voice greets the room and they lead straight into Eureka, one of the highlights from latest release Leave Your Soul To Science. The trio's sound is bolstered by an additional player who rotates between piano and rhythm guitar, while also providing Dempsey with constant harmony assistance. The frontman is an omnipresent figure towering down in his standard white v-neck while wife Stephanie Ashworth stands to his left, moving her long blonde locks back and forwards in time with the music. Behind all this is Clint Hyndman, who although is sporting a decent beard and plenty more tattoos these days, can still bludgeon a kit without remorse, highlighted during the social pull-apart This Economy and abrasive Star-Crossed Citizens. Although older tracks like Three Dimensions, Monsters and a spun out Deja Vu are received the warmest initially, by set's end it's the newer material that is garnering the better response; the refined intensity of tracks such as The Fireball At The End Of Everything and The Kids Will Get The Money especially going lengths to highlight a band that, almost 20 years in, are still writing vital tunes.

Late in the set Dempsey is left by himself on stage in acoustic mode to deliver Deep Sea Divers, before the lanky frontman dips into his Shotgun Karaoke swag – incorporating bonus material from the new album – with a mesmerising rendition of Sam Brown's Stop. The rest of the band then return to the stage to introduce new single Miracle Cure before Pinstripe concludes a lengthy set; however, it doesn't take long for the quartet to respond to the crowd's pleas for an encore with a roaring cover of World Party's Ship Of Fools leading into the strain of Electricity, before Begin starts everyone's week on the right foot.