Europe-bound in May, Pond join their Spinning Top labelmates AAA Aardvark Getdown Services, Felicity Groom, The Silents and DJ Lady Carla this Saturday, February 22, at the Chevron Festival Gardens.
Last time Pond took to a stage was at this year’s Southbound, where they not only served up a joyous set of their own, but joined MGMT and Neil Finn onstage for a run through the latter’s Six Months In A Leaky Boat.
While his bandmates revelled on the stage, singer/songwriter, Nick Allbrook, floated on top of the crowd in a rubber lifeboat. Jolly good times and no leaks…
“Yeah that was pretty special,” he says. “I was kind of distracted from the happy moment by trying to keep myself alive and afloat in the rubber boat. Neil Finn was real friendly to us and we hung out a bit. I don’t know what he thinks about the music but it seems that he like to hang around with us. As people (laughs).”
Pond’s sets at the 2013 St Jerome’s Laneway Festival and this year’s Southbound were both audiosonic fun affairs. Seems Allbrook’s got this festival caper sorted.
“They’re pretty easy,” he says. “There’s less pressure because you’re yet another thing that scatters among people’s strange memories of whatever weekend they had. There’s not as much pressure as your own show.”
Rather than launch into a six-month touring cycle upon the released of Pond’s most recent LP, Hobo Rocket, in August, Allbrook stayed home while several cohorts travelled the word with Tame Impala. Shows eventually played in support of Hobo Rocket were limited to a few headline shows in late 2013, the Falls Festival and Southbound.
“It was just nice not to go and tour,” Allbrook explains. “And then we did play the shows later on.”
Did those shows tie a bow on the Hobo Rocket era at all?
“No, not really,” Allbrook considers. “A show is a show is a show, you just gradually slap on extra songs and unless you’re really dedicated to it and do a grand overhaul of the whole spectacle then maybe something would be different. But we didn’t do that, we just added in the songs from that album.”
Pond head into a different kind of festival experience this Saturday at the Chevron Festival Gardens, joining their Spinning Top labelmates for a night of doing what they do so well. Which could mean anything; not that he has any secrets to share…
“I don’t think there’s any secrets. If there’s any secrets I don’t know what they are. I think it’s just what it says… there’s bands playing (laughs).”
A new Pond album is due this year but is currently in the last throes of mixing and mastering. When asked in what ways it moves onward from , his description is delicious, yet oblique.
“I guess it’s less obnoxious and shambolic,” Allbrook states. “It’s maybe even less consistent with itself.”
As with this week’s front cover star Beck (see page 14) Allbrook has song ideas that he revisits over time… if he remembers too.
“A lot of stuff I write ends up being like that. Sometimes I just write it and then completely forget about it for ages (laughs). Sometimes I write it and forget about it forever. I think I’ve done that with heaps of things. There’s demos that have been just lost, or thrown away.”
Not too sentimental about what could have been, then?
“I’m not sentimental at all,” Allbrook says. “If I didn’t have a desperate need to finish them or put them out at the time then I figure they mustn’t have really been that great. I try not to saturate a certain type of sound or sentiment I get into. Instead of writing a whole album around a certain aesthetic that I enjoy, it’s better to try and distil everything into one or two songs that make sense.”
BOB GORDON
Pond play Chevron Festival Gardens, February 22.
Get your tickets here.
