Reviewed on Tuesday August 2
Gang Of Youths surprised a lot of delighted Sydneysiders when they announced midway through Tuesday that they would be playing a free show at Newtown Social Club to celebrate the release of their new EP, Let Me Be Clear. And boy, was Sydney ready for them.
At first, it was strange to see Gang Of Youths on a smaller stage after a run of much bigger shows, and it took them a song or two to adjust to the more intimate crowd. Playing a healthy mix of new songs and older crowd-pleasers like ‘Poison Drum’ and ‘Restraint & Release’, they quickly found their stride.
One of the most surprising highlights of the night was when lead singer Dave Le’aupepe took to the piano alone to reveal a new song he’d never played for an audience before. He explained it was the last song he wrote about the girl who’d been the subject of the band’s debut album, The Positions – a painful final memory of loving someone who doesn’t want to love you back. While earlier on, girls (and guys) from the crowd had shouted “I love you!” and “Take your shirt off!” to Le’aupepe, this was a stark reminder that we were hearing from someone who’d had their heart brutally broken, and the music took us away to this devastating place for a quiet moment.
He continued in this more personal fashion with touching renditions of ‘Knuckles White Dry’ and even one of Gang Of Youths’ oldest tracks, ‘Evangelists’, which he momentarily forgot the lyrics to. But from this point on, the show quickly picked up in tempo for ‘Strange Diseases’, which drew the biggest response of the new material.
The audience’s energy burst into oblivion for another crowd favourite, ‘Magnolia’. It’s known among Gang Of Youths fans as the defiant epitome of what the band stands for, and when it arrived here, something phenomenal happened. The room erupted with love: people jumped onto other people’s shoulders, embraced, and Le’aupepe ran out into the audience, fighting his way through joyful fans who danced with him as he sang. At times, the floor was shaking with so much movement that I feared it would break.
The show closed with a fun rendition of ‘Vital Signs’, and Le’aupepe offered one final piece of advice: “Now go home and listen to some Radiohead. We’re Gang Of Youths.”
