Gig: Art Of Fighting @ Luminaire 04/04/06

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Originally uploaded by acb.

We quickly dropped back into Melbourne last night to catch Art Of Fighting play at the Luminaire. Well, that is what it felt like anyway. The luminaire is a concert venue akin to the Corner Hotel in Richmond or the late Punters Club on Brunswick Street. Small, intimate and tastefully decorated with candles and lampshades. Okay, neither the Corner or the Punners was tastefully decorated but hey they are still perfecting Melbourne grunge chic over here.

Alcoholic, Claire Bowditch was first support and she did a good job of warming the crowd up with her take on the one-(wo)man-band. I don't know Claire that well but I know that her music is well liked. Her last few numbers really hit a chord so I may check out her recordings. Her banter was certainly the highlight of her set. She admitted to being quite tipsy and stopped often to ask the time of the audience. Half-jokingly she said she would love to play more and that her music was better than the upcoming Dutch act. Note to self don't ever try to play a half baked cover of Boys Don't Cry onstage whilst drunk.

Onstage banter was also the highlight of the Flemmish post-rock instrumentals of "We Vs. Death" only theirs was funnier because they couldn't really speak that much of the English. They missed their boat that morning and their friend said to them how could you miss that boat, you knew what time it was, so they had to drive all the way and they are very tired. Apparently it is funnier in Dutch. Their music was actually quite cool. Grunge-jazz, if you will.

Finally Art Of Fighting were up. I waxed lyrical to you all the other day about how much I love these guys. They didn't seem at their peak last night though. Ollie's voice sounded a little weak and not quite so transcendent as when I saw them last. Of course I was confused as to who Ollie actually was for the first few songs, convinced as I was that Miles was supposed to be singing. Damn my un-photographic memory! Ridiculous considering Richard introduced me to them once, I suppose I was too busy thanking them for the music (the songs they're singing) to remember who was who.

That said, they warmed up and by the time they got around to Two Rivers I was sold all over again and had stopped trying to convince myself that the "real" Ollie just had a sore throat and they'd swapped roles for the night. I love the way Art Of Fighting manage to find the quiet moments in the noise and the noise in the emotion. They closed with one of their finest moments, Just Say I'm Right off off of their first LP, "Wires", which was probably the song that sold me on them in the first place. It is live that this track really shines and plays out the obsessiveness and anger that fuel its core. Priceless.

Unfortunately there were some vocal people in the crowd so their encore ended up being Reasons Are All I Have Left instead of Something New or Busted, Broken, Forgotten. Great song but not a great closer for the evening (there was one last track but we had to rush for the last train).

All in all it was a good night (Angela loved it too, good to bring people into the fold) but not a patch on the Speigeltent gig of '04 (or was it '05?)