Snowman were joined by Baseball and Hit the Jackpot on The Horse, The Rat and The Swan tour – their last tour of Australia before heading to the mother country where they plan to base themselves indefinitely.
Up first, local three piece Hit the Jackpot did their best to rouse the crowd and despite some sound issues which drowned their vocals, they did their best to showcase what they describe as enthusiastic noisy pop.
As expected there was much instrument swapping with the standout of the set being the finale when Jess Thomas on vocals showed the power of her scream and, hilariously, the person standing in front of me almost jumped right out of his skin.
Up next were Baseball from Melbourne who have got to be one of the most exciting bands I’ve seen in some time.
Describing front man, Thick Passage who also plays violin, is not easy but if you can imagine a very sexy homeless man dressed for Park Life in a wife beater white singlet, Nike shorts and trainers playing the violin in a lunge position like a mad man you could be half way there.
Musically Baseball had some awesome punk bass and drum beats and when drummer Evelyn Morris joined Thick Passage on vocals the contrast was quite fantastic and maybe it’s just the impending World Youth Day but I was hearing angels and devils.
Finally Snowman hit the stage and while somewhat self indulgent in places they achieved being able to guide and manipulate the crowd through the whole range of emotions. The set went from the wild and frenetic Our Mother She Remembers to the absolute melancholy of The Blood of the Swan where you could see the crowd lost in themselves before being pulled back out again for Daniel was a Timebomb where Olga ditched the bass guitar for a saxophone. In A Rebirth Andy showed off his violin skills however while my highlight was early in the set with the amazingly good Machines, and then they finished off with the moody Diamond Wounds.
Snowman are not a band that interacts with the crowd much less themselves and they have a reputation for either getting it very, very right or very, very wrong. But tonight on what will be their last gig in Adelaide in a long while they nailed it and left the crowd pleading for more which unfortunately was not to materialise.
