Live Review: The Best South Australian Acts At BIGSOUND 2024

This week’s BIGSOUND saw seven of South Australia’s finest local music acts represent their state with an impressive diversity of sound and talent. 

While it’s nearly impossible to round up a handful of awe-inspiring artists from the massive line-up, there were a select few of South Australia’s finest talents who left us with jaws agape—and here they are.

Rob Edwards 

Rob Edwards, combining elements of jazz, blues, and R&B into soulful melodies set against pastel instrumentation, flashes an assured, blinding smile as he graces Wonderland Upstairs on September 3rd for his first BIGSOUND showcase.

Soaking in the hot pink light, he is a natural performer, navigating the stage with ease, control, and a gentle swagger. He engages in effortless vocal acrobatics embedded in silky textures - reverberating guitar licks, unobtrusive drum beats, and the occasional wacky synth solo.

Edwards and his bandmates bob in time, a landscape of soulful gyrations. The most moving moment of the set comes when he talks about his grandmother, who was part of the Stolen Generation. He ties this piece of his past into the notion of connecting culture and country within himself by crooning a reflective, solemn ballad called Searching, which touches on worthy sentiments of Indigenous truth, intergenerational trauma, and the ongoing process of healing. The song is evidently - from the enthusiastic reception it receives from the audience - the highlight of the show. 

Divebar Youth

The stage nestled in the rear of Ric’s Backyard is wreathed in a cold, arctic light that is quite literally blinding. Vinnie Barbaro, AKA Divebar Youth, glowing blue, grips the microphone and launches into his set with a chuckle and a muttered, “Fuck yeah, let’s do it.”

Divebar Youth is defined primarily by Barbaro’s chest-aching bass and flailing guitar; the audience swarms and clenches to it, rippling as Tuesday night starts to descend into Wednesday morning. The music exists in a sonic space that is reminiscent of Muse - angsty, energetic, throbbing. Barbaro creeps around the stage with a boyish charm, his cheeky stage banter peppered with profanity. His accented, gravelly vocal delivery is reminiscent of early Alex Turner.

“Yeehah, huh?” he grins into the spit-flecked mic at one point, for which the audience goes amusingly wild. Divebar Youth’s September 3rd set comes to an end, the bass reverberating through the concrete beneath our tapping feet until it fades to nothing. 

The Tullamarines 

The band that kickstarts BIGSOUND’s Made In SA showcase, taking place right smack in the middle of a Wednesday at The Outpost, is indie pop outfit The Tullamarines. Their music is guitar-heavy, angsty but upbeat, adorned by such occasional shenanigans as cheerful whistling over an ecstatic drumbeat and funky, futuristic guitar effects.

All four musicians onstage contribute vocals, creating a full, dreamy texture. They have a friendly ease with each other, all keen to take turns gripping the reigns and then handing them over. There is an atmosphere of trust in the way that they groove with each other - the bassist and vocalist, Lucinda, is rocking a knee brace but still managing to bounce with verve.

With pumping bass licks and lots of pomp, their energy is infectious, and all four of the musicians onstage are naturals at building a casual, easygoing rapport with the enthusiastic crowd. It is clear to me as The Tullamarines jive about in the multi-hued spotlight that all of these technically proficient and business-savvy musicians have put a lot of work into making their sound commercially viable, and have succeeded in doing so. 

DEM MOB

The second act performing at the Made In SA showcase blazed into their set with confidence. DEM MOB, the hip-hop group originating from northern South Australia’s APY Lands, weave across the stage with raucous energy, ushering people to the front of the crowd and launching into politically charged rap verses with impressive speed as they bounce on the balls of their feet.

At one point, they joke that the number of people present in the room for the showcase would likely surpass the number of inhabitants in their hometown (which, according to them, possesses a sparse population of approximately 150 people). A sense of leadership and charisma appears to be evenly split across the outfit - they guide each other and perform with unity, showcasing both silky vocals and flinty rap skills. They manage to maintain their energy throughout what is sure to be a physically and emotionally draining set.

Their aim, they declare midway through their set, is to “bring cultures together through our music.” They are performing as a means to “overcome, together.” The final song of the set produces the most powerful moment of the afternoon, when all four members of DEM MOB stand in line with raised fists, invite the audience members to do the same and stand in solemn silence as a sampled recording repeats dire statistics - such as the appalling rate of Indigenous incarceration - indicative of the institutionalised racism that First Nations people still face on this terrain day-to-day. 

Oscar The Wild 

Indie rock darlings Oscar The Wild grace the Outpost stage for the third and final set of the Made In SA showcase. They have a jaunty pump to their sound, a punk spirit buoyed by a cute, quiet quirkiness that is reminiscent of Kimya Dawson of The Moldy Peaches. Their collective onstage persona is funny and silly. Ruby, who fronts the band, has that biting, accented Courtney Barnett sting to their voice - which displays itself in one moment as bright and breathy and in the next descends into a throaty growl.

The final song they perform is a single released in 2020 called Kiss Me, Aphrodite, which showcases the best of the band’s sound. With simple but moving lines like “She likes my eyes because they’re blue/She likes my hands because I have two,” Oscar The Wild easily wins over a crowd that is just on the verge of being exhausted by the overconsumption of music. 

TOWNS 

At the Soapbox Beer at 10 pm on a Wednesday night, the air is so hazy with white smoke that it is almost opaque. By the time the two sole members of punk rock puzzle TOWNS - Aston and Dan - swagger onstage, the venue was packed to the rafters.

Dan opens the set by declaring into the microphone, “I’m gonna shut the fuck up…only music and none of my bullshit. Is that okay?” The audience hysterically affirms that it is more than okay. Aston has a kind of Gerard Way sensibility to him as he plays (this could be the combination of an ironed short-sleeve button-down shirt and bold arm tattoos). Dan is wiry and giddy, drumming with manic energy, bleached braids swinging.

The two are perfectly in sync with each other. Their music is thrashy, leaving the audience with no room to breathe, and they appear to love being suffocated by the sound. Members of the crowd hold their phones aloft to capture the raw energy of this skull-rattling music. Towards the end of the set, Aston explains that he and Dan met on their first day of university about ten years ago and have been best friends ever since - that bond is more than evident through the music they play onstage together. 

Swapmeet

It is close to midnight when Swapmeet take The Outpost stage on September 4th. Venus, hovering before a mic stand, spidery fingers clutching at guitar frets, is dressed like a smoky-eyed Alice In Wonderland. Her face is doll-like in the unearthly glow of the spotlight. Josh, holding a bass, and Jack, holding a guitar, start off their set sitting cross-legged onstage as Venus whispers her way into the intro of Ceiling Fan, their first song of the night. Swapmeet’s textures are so full, intimate, playful, and gut-wrenching all at once.

I, personally, am such a fan of their sound that I irresponsibly neglected to put my earplugs in during their set. They are all consummate, versatile musicians, able to communicate with each other by gaze alone. They are all leaders in their own right, a unified front. Maxwell starts out behind the drumkit. Jack sings lead for the second track while playing guitar. Then the two switch - Maxwell is now singing lead and playing guitar while Jack keeps the beat and hits the snare. Every member is a crucial asset to the band.

During the soaring crescendo of the final song of the set, I Wish I, Josh races offstage, still clutching his bass, and leaps onto a side table, continuing to play as he jumps and jigs. The band is an electric presence, a dynamic and vitalising act that closes Wednesday night and ushers in the morning.