Live Review: Thurston Moore, Kieren Ryan

Kieran Ryan cuts a solitary figure onstage as he gently strums his guitar and sensitively croons one of his lovelorn songs. Ryan is perhaps better known as one half of the acclaimed duo Kid Sam, a project that is now reportedly on hold as he puts the finishing touches on his first solo album. Those expecting a soft solo set are perhaps surprised when Ryan's six-piece backing band featuring two drummers marches on stage to deliver a louder, experimental-rock noise. Together they provide Ryan's storytelling songs with a more expansive sound, which shifts from subtle to raucous but is always strange and beautiful.

Hamer Hall feels like a weird setting for a couple of rock bands. Perhaps the only concession to the grandioseness of the venue is the huge concert harp sitting at the side of the stage. Roadies mill around onstage testing and checking things and Thurston Moore is among them, checking out the audience as much as he is the equipment onstage. Abruptly, the lights go down and instantly the band is in place and Moore turns around to the audience, who applaud. Moore starts with pretty random but amusing patter for what feels like a very long time. He seems thrilled and surprised that the Melbourne Festival was happy to fly Mary Lattimore just to play tonight's show, but laments that the cost of renting her harp is eating up a large part of their budget. The lanky icon of indie music then introduces his band, which also includes guitarist Keith Wood, drummer John Moloney and violinist Samara Lubelski. Moore talks for ages before they launch into Orchard Street from last year's acoustic album Demolished Thoughts. The glorious noise that effortlessly springs forth is lush and richly detailed. While some have thought that this album draws inspiration from folk music, the thrashing strumming and extended coda of these songs sounds more like Sonic Youth unplugged than anything else.

Moore, aged 54, maintains the presence of a goofy adolescent as he tangentially talks about an assortment of things, including shopping for records in New York in the '70s. He seems surprised that the Festival asked him to come and showcase Demolished Thoughts as they had stopped touring the album a year ago. Never Day and Fri/End see Moore and the band stray to play songs from Tree Outside The Academy. After stopping the show and begging the audience for a tissue because he's apparently down with the flu and jetlagged after a long flight, Moore gets back to Demolished Thoughts with Mina Loy and Circulation. The arrangements of these tunes feel strange and experimental, but, interestingly, they are wound around some of Moore's more conventional songwriting efforts.

Six songs into the show and Moore straps on an electric guitar as a woman in the crowd releases a deep low guttural, “Yeaaaaah!” Pretty Bad comes on strong with plenty of attitude as we're dealt three songs off the classic Psychic Hearts album. It provides exactly the kind of New York noise many have come to hear tonight and is warmly received. Ono Soul and the title track Psychic Hearts has punters sitting up and listening as these tunes recall Moore's wilder days in Sonic Youth. Having recently split up, most expect that Moore will not play any Sonic Youth songs tonight. Of course this does not stop someone from requesting Silver Rocket to which Moore curtly replies, “We are not doing any covers tonight.”

The two encores are songs from Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving's forthcoming album. Thumping a lot harder than anything else we hear tonight, the solid psychedelic bluesy stomp of these tunes is perhaps the most energetic of the evening's rather laidback set. An elegant and understated set of alternative rock from one of its masters.