A soggy start to Autumn was passionately denied with tonight's bill. Between Melbourne's gypsy party kids Flap! and the new suite of The Cat Empire's musical, um, empire, there was barely a slow song or moment to stop dancing. The former were particularly impressive, a strange mix of 1950s-styled pop, kitsch sounds (banjo ukulele, anyone?) and some great (funny) tunes. They have promised to come back again – Sydney, we need to hold them to it.

The Cat Empire took the stage a little later, looking a little more 'mature' (haircuts and stage outfits are a bit more sensible these days) but sounding as passionate as always. Kicking off with How To Explain (and the band's favourite self-introductory lyric, “Music is the language of us all”), over the next couple of hours they gave their back catalogue a reasonable outing (Hello, Two Shoes, Sly all especially fun), but really tonight was about the band showing what they've been doing since they last saw us. The new album, due out later this year, sounds like it will be more experimental than first single, Brighter Than Gold allows. Some gorgeous, Radiohead-esque epics (but with a bit more overt humour); a fab jungle-inspired epic with the boys howling among the musical animals; a sweet love song that still lets vocalist Felix Riebl control the room's collective swoon (“My heart's beating like a drum”), a rumbling Arabic-inspired encore – all played with genuine excitement. If the band was nervous about the new outings, as indicated by them noting a few times, “We've never played this before”, then their voices, fingers and other music makers didn't feel the pressure their heads did.