Reviewed on Saturday September 17
Zeahorse’s single launch was a long time in the making, as a result of having to reschedule the show due to ill health earlier in the year. Regardless of whether or not this was the cause for them packing out the Botany View Hotel before the bands even started and the footy was still on, the fact remains that such an achievement is a feat in itself.
Shearin opened up the proceedings with some pretty furious vocal deliveries. From the next room it might have been hard to tell if a solo vocal break mid-song was part of the show or an unhinged mid-set babble about the 2014 NRL Grand Final. With the singer taking the floor rather than the stage, his delivery was both intimate and intense. Grinding Eyes followed soon after with some pretty gnarly noise pop in the vein of A Place to Bury Strangers – a nice bridging act between the opener and the main act.
Once Zeahorse took the stage, something extraordinary began to unfold – a circle pit, right in the middle of the pub floor. Crowd surfing, swinging arms – at one point a punter slowly fell back onto the crowd with his arms out like Jesus on the cross. The most endearing thing about such an achievement, though was the fact that the crowd, even at its most turbulent, wasn’t a complete dude fest. Both genders threw down in what felt like Sydney’s most emphatic celebration of live music in a long time. The band ripped through tracks from their 2013 record Pools – the title track, first single ‘Career’, and even ‘Familiar Faeces’ which they’d reportedly never played live before.
Songs from their upcoming record have been in their set for a while now, though ‘Draino’, ‘Nature Strip’ and off the cuff encore ‘Bending Floor’ sounded stronger and more refined than ever in their final form.
It was a treat to watch them fill the room with some of their loudest riffs to no less than 150 people. In Sydney, given the current climate, shows like this are few and far between. And, better still, Zeahorse shows are almost always like this – the band are definitely doing something right. Among the chatter afterwards was the sentiment that most people walked away feeling like they’d witnessed something pretty special.
