Live Review: Wye Oak, Major Leagues

Taking to a stage adorned with shiny silver, locals Major Leagues open with a boppy summer pop track to get the crowd moving.

They’re putting the finishing touches on the film clip for new single Someone Sometime tonight, a camera following a tall beauty in a flowing outfit as she listens to Jaimee Fryer dish the sweetest of sweet vocals over a striking melody. With a pace shift, pop gem Endless Drain signals a set drawing to an end, though not before the four-piece sign off with the chugging guitars of Feel, growing incrementally faster and noisier as Vlada Edirippulige holds steady on bass and the set highlight is delivered. 

Tonight’s set from Baltimore natives Wye Oak could be polarising for fans of the guitar driven, autumnal alt-folk of their first four records, especially as the synth blips and extra-heavy bass line of Before, the opener from new record Shriek, introduces the pair. Very quickly though it is clear that they’ve done a great amount of work to make the seemingly disparate styles gel in a live setting.

On bass, Jenn Wasner is a powerhouse; loud, dirty and intricate when needed, The Tower – and much of the new album’s material – connects to a greater level in a live setting. It’s also an opportunity to watch Wasner’s extraordinary musicianship between guitar, bass and keys, as drummer Andy Stack calmly goes above and far beyond his duties, simultaneously controlling a laptop, and a keyboard with his left hand. On a borrowed guitar, Wasner steps back into 2011’s breakthrough album Civilian, and though she has more than proven the value of Shriek, it’s difficult not to be utterly absorbed by her instinctive feel for getting wild and discordant across Holy Holy and Plains in a way that the synth-based tracks just can’t get close to. Newbie Glory connects the two records nicely, though Despicable Animal plods along, providing the only dull point of the set. Wasner is a personable leader; chatty and down-to-earth, she has the whole room in rapture.

Though perhaps the moment that cements it is how comfortable she is with the southern whiskey rock verses of 2009’s For Prayer that turn into a beautiful, wailing shred-fest. As a parting gift, the song most of the crowd have been hanging out for – Civilian – closes a triumphant set on Wye Oak’s debut Australian tour.