Pond live at The Norfolk review by Amber Fresh

I had a rude dream with Nick Allbrook in it the night before the show. Maybe it was because he was the last person I saw before I went to bed that night, but I think it’s also because he has animal magnetism and you can’t deny it. We’ve discussed playing one another in each other’s biopics, but of course I’m not ever going to have a biopic made of me, but Nick just might. He is a special boy, and with his band on Thursday night, he did very special things.

Yes, it’s true, Tusk were reasonably energetic, and have beauty and human loveliness on their sides, and Sonpsilo Circus know their way round their instruments, and had everything polished in a sweet way, and have a redhead, who are always my favourites, but really, Pond were the main event, the major chuijuajua. And honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s not because of my confusing sex dreams, or that I played organ at one of their parents’ weddings, but I think it’s because they are just vibrating like – what’s the subatomic particle that vibrates at the highest frequency? – well, like a bunch of those.

I remember before there were any friendships sailing the seas, seeing Mink Mussel Creek play at a bowls club in North Perth and feeling that thing where my body started to move for its own pleasure – I think it’s called dancing, but I mean more than that – and the same energy was coursing through everything at the Norfolk. For a while, it seemed like there was nothing else, just this music. Just all the boys in tune with one another’s juju, sweating out the meaning of life. At least, that’s how it was for me.

And for all the other people I saw with true passion on their faces, I think it was like that for them too. Nick was leaning out into the crowd, leaping out, climbing on crap, doing all the things that a rockstar might do, but in this case I felt like he really meant it, and that what he meant was “I love music, I love you, we are together in this, you, man in the front row, you girl in the second row who I’ll lean against for a moment, you, people in a crowd feeling the fizzing of my skin as I rummage through your tight pack of appreciatory close-fanness.” Or something close to that… It seemed like the band were actually one pulsating being, generating psychic goo and electricity with nearly every song. They had lame projections from an iphone overhead, but hey, who cares.

Dot point premature epilogue: Some of the things I noticed and thought about, when I wasn’t caught up in the moment included: Joe Ryan does my favourite banter out of anyone in any band in Perth, surely he’s a comedic genius; Cameron Avery actually looks like he’s losing himself in the music, his face is special tonight, covered in sweat and having to keep up with the others; I miss playing in a band with Nick, where for the three shows I got to play he would push me over or find some way to bruise me during the set; Jamie is so amazing at everything; Gumby, what a guy; and it’s so good to actually hear a keyboard contributing properly to the sound of a band; and I am lucky, to be here, in the front row, to see this happening; and, why is my body moving so much?

My hair was still tingling from the many platonic kisses of one of my friends, generously metered out to me on my crown before Pond played, and perhaps I was a little heat-affected, melting more easily at the sounds surrounding me, but it did seem like a special show.

And I know you’re not meant to tell your friends if you have rude dreams about them, but I did, and it didn’t matter. Maybe that dream was from the world in general, the few hundreds of thousands of people who will like Pond’s music, a representation of them joining with a band they will follow and love into the future, once they get to hear them.

Written to the sound of shit music at a cafe, and people talking in racist ways next to me, but luckily I could lose myself in memory of an amazing show.

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  1. beyond-mystic reblogged this from tameimpala and added:
    must. love. amber
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