The Temper Trap are one of those bands that are two faced....in a good way. They have a side to their music that makes them accessible, their lively chorus's and clap-along rhythms can compete with the best. But they also have that side-that in my opinion a band has to have-which can surprise you, the sort of side they clearly save for their live shows.
At this point it is worth mentioning the support which came from ex-Acquiescence singer Sarah Blasko who has been rattling around the singer-songwriter scene for quite a few years now. She was a good support act, with some nice melodies and an impressively poetic set of lyrics. However she never managed to draw any sort of enthusiasm from an audience who at this point appeared to be rather a quiet one, I was soon to be proved wrong.
The crowd got a small preview of what was to follow when the DJ decided to momentarily halt the track playing at the time, cue lots of high pitched excited screams. However the first one was a false alarm, this was not the case however a few minutes later when the lights dimmed and the band took to the stage. The noise was almost deafening. As soon as they begun playing they had the crowds attention, everyone including myself was totally absorbed by every aspect of the band from Jonathan Aherne's twitchy bass playing/dancing to Dougie Mandagi's almost surreal ability to pull off notes which any Y chromosome bearing singer wouldn't dream of. The band, to the crowds delight went straight for a few of the bigger hits including 'Fader' and 'Sweet Disposition'. At this point I was wondering what their big finale was going to be, surely they have just played the to biggest crowd favourites, again, how wrong was I.
Probably one of the most impressive and slightly unexpected aspects to the bands show was the impressive light show, they knew exactly what they were doing. Managing to add to the atmosphere their music creates rather than detract from it. It also made it easy to get some impressive photos with little effort or Megapixels.
It was a testament to how good their debut album is when almost every song seemed to be the new crowd favourite. Each one has its own attraction to the audience, 'Down River' has its building enthusiasm and regular pitched lyrics. 'Resurrection' sees Mandagi back to his higher pitches but this coupled with the backing singing and bass builds an almost hypnotic melody until the impact finish that left the whole room buzzing.
The Highlight of the gig for me was 'Drum Song' the three minute instrumental ended up being more of a 10 minute epic. The lights were frantic and the crowd were speechless but still screaming. It culminated in a move which made the night. Lead singer Dougie appeared to be emptying a bottle of water on the stage and then throwing the bottle behind him, this however was not a piece of anti-recycling propaganda, it was special. All was revealed when the lights returned to their frantic nature and he started beating his drum, the water shot up off the now clear target creating an effect which left the small girl stood next to me screaming like she had just seen Taylor Lautner blow her a kiss (to regain credibility i had to IMDB that guys name). The encore followed even though in truth they could have done about ten, the crowd were definitely up for this and rightly so, one of the best debut album gigs. Simply brilliant.
