End of Fashion attempted their triumphant return to the stage with a string of shows, first at the NSC…
The night began well and somewhat quietly with first support act Oh Mercy’s lead singer Alexander Gow taking to the stage to play a song by himself before the rest of the band came on. Oh Mercy’s strength comes from their strong melodies influenced by mellow 50-60s revivalist sound, which the crowd enjoyed. Unfortunately “crowd” wasn’t the best of words to use as the audience was smaller then they deserved. Aware of this fact, they made light of the situation with humour – including self-depreciating jokes, songs about sleeping with cousins and various other witty anecdotes. Their sound did risk becoming monotonous, but thankfully sped up towards the end to culminate in a good finish.
Next up were Dash and Will, who immediately called for everyone to get up and shake it out, which most of the former Oh Mercy audience did by stumbling slowly upwards. They began with an up-tempo 90s pop-rock song which was a nice change from Oh Mercy. The seven piece lead by Dash and Will, formerly an acoustic act, worked well together, with only one false finish to a newer song. The problem though was that their sound never really changed between songs. Even their ballad, Its Painful, was only slightly slower than their other songs. However they did manage to keep up the energy, with plenty of jokes and enthusiastic interaction with the crowd. They also ended quite well with a decent cover of a song by The Easybeats being the highlight of their performance.
Finally, the headliners End of Fashion were up, making their return after a two year hiatus from playing and greeted by enthusiastic fans. Speaking of the audience, the room didn’t end up filling out completely, with a fair amount of space left, probably in part because of their two year break and the seemingly steep ticket price, but was far from being empty. Loyal fans weren’t to be disappointed, with She’s Love played early and featuring tracks such as Rough Diamonds and ending the encore with The Game. O Yeah also made its appearance, with a tongue-in-cheek reference to The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind at the end, featuring the vocal line of Kim Deal at the end of the song.
Their new material seems to have gone in a somewhat more aggressive direction and was generally well received. The whole band seemed as whole more manly, with more facial hair and ragged clothes to boot and a fine cover of Nirvana’s Aneurysm solidified the more intense sound as the first song of the encore. Though the band hasn’t lost its ability to please a crowd, able to switch seamlessly between slower and faster songs and maintaining flow by musically seguing between songs. Banter was also good with jokes about playing all new material and hi-five-ing the crowd.
Unfortunately the show did have its problems, all coming from technical trouble. The show slowly became more littered with feedback spikes as it went on, the drummer’s vocal mike shorted out visibly upsetting him and at one point one of the band members asked if anyone had a spare amp. So while End Of Fashion didn’t get the return they were hoping for it wasn’t all bad, and they’ll have plenty of time to fix the gear with their weekly playing schedule only just beginning.
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End of Fashion continue their Tuesday night residency at the Northcote Social for the next two weeks.
