LIVE/ THE HONEY MONTH/ PARADES

@ Cubby Hole
1/04/2010

Parades gave the Cubby Hole's Thursday audience a short, sweet set, while at times The Honey Month had too much energy.

Arriving at 8:25pm, twenty-five minutes after the Parades and Seabellies 'Young Cubs and Past Lives Tour' was due to begin, we were told Cubby Hole would be closed until 8:30pm. Once inside we found we were the only patrons apart from band members. An hour later Brisbane's The Honey Month began by apologizing for the delay.

The crowd built quite impressively for the five-piece, although we were blocked off by a row of gloomy looking girls sitting on their stools, sipping vodka sunrises. Despite the lengthy sound check, Thomas Kulich’s vocals were still drowned out by an acoustic guitar, a double bass, drums and two ukuleles (his own and a red electric one). Their double bass plucker, David Leonardi, had too much energy for the beginning of the set; watching him jump, jig, spin and hop was cringe-worthy. For their third, slower song "Home", Thomas swapped his ukulele for a piano accordion. The band’s fast-paced strumming of multiple guitars and a mixture of unexpected instruments resembled an amateur mix of Mumford and Sons and a heavier Fleet Foxes.

David’s energy came back in the fourth song as he jumped around in an excruciating manner. His jigging prevented him from plucking his instrument and also caused him to collide with Thomas (who was clearly in a more still music-zone). Their final song ended with nothing but the whole band providing some nice harmonies. Although The Honey Month faced the bleak crowd with some great, and sometimes over-the-top energy, there was no audience interaction.  The only time the band acknowledged their audience was with their apology at the beginning of the set and at the end with Thomas stating “I have heaps of CDs to give away, if you want one come see me”... yawn.

Sydney’s Parades began their set at 10:30pm to a crowd who had demolished the boundaries of sunrise-sipping lasses in order to be directly in front of the performance area – unfortunately this made it very hard to see from a couple metres back (for those who don’t know, the Cubby Hole’s ‘stage’ is nothing but the corner of the dark, carpeted room with only a platform for the drummer). Nevertheless, Parades made up for this.

Main-man Daniel Cunningham thanked the audience "for sticking around", before throwing the band into ‘Marigold’. Jonathan Boulet on drums and their keyboardist/female vocalist, who also beat some bongos with sticks, both had exceptional energy throughout the song. The crowd lapped up every second of ‘Hunters’ and after, during their random instrumental session while their electric guitar player, Tim Junkins fixed his snapped string. Despite being quite far from the action and some audio trouble causing uncomfortable feedback, Parades’ live show of layered male and female vocals along with a mixture of instruments was atmospheric and mesmerising.

Unfortunately, the band played a short set of six songs, missing the title track from the tour, ‘Past Lives’ and their most played MySpace song, 'Invaders'. To all those who attended and were also disappointed at the short length, Daniel told me after the set that they were asked to cut it back. He even wrote on the set list he provided me ‘Sorry for not playing Past Lives :(’.

Upside: The Honey Month's interesting alternating of instruments

Downside: Parades set being cut short

Crowd: Mainly indie kids



Parades - Loserspeak In New Tongue from Parades on Vimeo.