Chevron Festival Gardens
Friday, February 27, 2015
American rock outfit Parquet Courts have come along way in a short space of time. They quickly have become a buzz band and have the frenetic release schedule that only youth and a punk DIY ethos can bring. People not only came in droves to be inside the venue to experience the four piece, but the surrounding garden was also packed with revelers taking to any vantage point for an ale and a listen.
The quartet were last in Perth just over 12 months ago at the Laneway Festival and have clearly become a road-hardened outfit in the time between. Gone is the ramshackle delivery that has been replaced by a tight and almost slick delivery that sees many tunes bleed into each other without so much as a blink from any band member. You’ve Got Me Wonderin’ Now signaled intentions for a band that sound every bit as much like The Strokes as they do Iggy.
Austin Brown is clearly a quality over quantity singer. He doesn’t take on vocal duties too often but when he does, the tunes are usually in the top echelon of Parquet Courts moments. Bodies was his first missive for the evening and the lanky guitarist didn’t disappoint. These bursts of guitar lead rock songs are delivered at a cracking pace with close to ten songs committed to before the band enter into any meaningful banter with the crowd.
Bass player Sean Yeaton celebrated a birthday somewhere between crossing timezones on the way to Australia so decided to commemorate the occasion by running through the angular Every Day It Starts. The second half of the set saw the better known tunes being unleashed with Master Of My Craft and Borrowed Time being the strongest coupling.
Band leader Andrew Savage has a voice that is far from pristine but he makes up for any failing with his impassioned delivery. Although Parquet Courts are as raw as a Japanese dinner they are a dynamic bunch. The slower moments were by and large the weaker, with only the Pavement-like Pretty Machines bucking that trend. Finishing with the title tracks of their last three albums (Content Nausea, Light Up Gold II and Sunbathing Animal) may not have only ensured that the outfit signed off in the strongest of ways, but may have also paid dividends at the merch desk.
Parquet Courts don’t do anything that hasn’t been done before, but the punk rock baton continually needs to be handed on from one generation to the next. On tonight’s showing from Parquet Courts, it is in safe hands.
CHRIS HAVERCROFT
