Live Review: The Clean

If indie-rock is your jam, chances are you either know who The Clean are, or enjoy something The Clean-influenced. The Dunedin, NZ, group led a small vanguard of bands through the early ‘80s, including The Bats and The Verlaines (nothing to do with Tom Verlaine).

They pushed the envelope with swirling psychedelic jams and gently incessant jangle-pop arrangements that sound weirdly familiar all these years later in the wake of so many similar bands. Their sound caught on in the fringes, and hovered there for decades, and can clearly be heard in groups like Yo La Tengo and Pavement, and their drone-y sound forms the core of many contemporary groups like Real Estate.

Their inclusion on this year’s Sydney Fest bill is a case in point of why this festival remains such a highlight in the annual calendar. It’s a real left-field pick, but such a solid one, as it reaches past brighter, shinier “newer” acts and goes right to the source of so many groups that could’ve ended up on the list quite easily.

The Aurora Spiegeltent hosted the rare event, and the warm drapery and pillowy darkness felt like the perfect counterpoint to balance the bright and brittle summeriness of their songs.

It was a no-frills show (no surprises there – they are not a complicated band) and the set flowed really nicely. There was a natural ebb and flow of tension and release as we listened to them for a while, and they generated a nice steady build of atmosphere as they moved through the set. Anything Could Happen stood out.

It was amazing to hear so many familiar noises. The current Australian garage/psych scene owes an awful lot to these guys. It was a privilege to be there to see where it all came from.