The sold out Jungle Giants show at The Gov, showcased that guitar indie pop is still a vital part of the Australian music landscape. The heaving masses sang along to too many favourite songs to recount, and danced into the night with no lapse in energy.
Ethereal indie trio Lastlings were a beguiling opening act with silky vocals and big percussive elements, although the huge rhythms overwhelmed the vocals at times. This brother and sister duo had some truly beautiful emotional slower moments within the set to break things up and a sophistication to their sound which belied their age and shows promise for the future.
The Jungle Giants have a stage energy and live show that is so positive and so engaging that it’s a hard thing to pull off if you don’t have it in you. The band excel at music tailor made for Triple J friendly crowds and summer music festivals. It’s all feel good vibes without too much intellectualism or darkness, but it worked for the all ages crowd. The band’s banter isn’t necessarily the stuff great movie one liners are made from, but their easy relatable nature really resonated with the audience.
With simple straight forward drum beats that kept things simple for dance rock, a confident grooving bassist and a unique lead guitarist who wasn’t afraid to utilise her tube screamer pedal the live sound was pretty solid. The lead singer kept things simple with his guitar work and had a wide vocal range which included some great falsetto and allowed for some fast lyrical work working around the rhythms of the tracks.
Jungle Giants are one Australian band that really does have a whole host of songs that would be someone’s favourite song. “Be my girl”, “You’ve got something” and “Bad Dream” all received a great response from the crowd as did the super catchy “On the way down” which had a great crowd singalong. falsetto parts stood out
“Feel the way I do” provided a great high energy end to the set with a fantastic dance guitar riff. There were also a few trial songs made the set a bit more unique and broke things up a bit, as did the jam between the bassist and drummer.
Jungle Giants have slotted into a zone that seems to guarantee success in Australia: not commercial but not truly alternative. A magic formula that the band has nailed and has led to enduring popularity over the last few years.
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