Live Review: Warpaint

Sydney Opera House have added a new name to their growing international portfolio with LA's Warpaint. Their Concert Hall debut was a good one; the band's energy was positive, the crowd were on their feet (it doesn't happen as often as you might think) and the setlist was notably deep.

Warpaint's sound suited the room. Their deep, sinewy, bass-driven melodies rolled freely around the space, and the band's deceptively minimalist arrangements allowed Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman's simple breathy voices to stand out without effort. Their sultry intonations were equal parts charming and deadly serious and, while they were busy crafting fragile clockwork-pop melodies on their guitars, bass player Jenny Lee Lindberg swayed happily on her riser, revelling in the inexorable force of her bass and the drums, played with clipped precision by Stella Mozgawa (happy birthday, by the way!).

Their new album, Heads Up, is a dance album and, as such, songs like Heads Up, So Good and set closer New Song stood out. These songs all have a pleasantly vapid drive that their previous work doesn't, so it was a chance for them (and us) to loosen up. Keep It Healthy and Love Is To Die were obvious and welcome additions, but it was the surprise inclusion of Beetles and Elephants (from their debut EP, the John Frusciante-mixed Exquisite Corpse) that added something special to the event.

Kokal performed a lovely solo rendition of Baby for their first encore and the band closed with Bees, a solid piece from The Fool. Kokal kept chatting, not realising the band were waving and walking off stage, and thus the night ended not with a triumphant departure, but rather a red-faced apology and retreat.