Little over a year ago, the then-mysterious Sydney act Winston Surfshirt were filling support slots in small rooms and starting to make waves with their woozy tracks led by Surfshirt’s smoky vocals.
Two strong singles later, alongside an exclusive support set for Midnight Oil’s first show on their worldwide reunion tour – plus a tick of approval from Elton John himself – and Winston Surfshirt have found themselves selling out their maiden national headline tour. The question was, with all the hype and less than a handful of songs out there, what could they deliver?
The band’s own support act was carefully chosen, and it was a refreshing treat to have Wallace warm the room up with her thick New Zealand accent and stellar jazz delivery mixed with future soul electronic vibes. As she powered through her groovy, bouncy tracks including ‘Raffled Roses’ and a Peter Pan-inspired number featuring a delightful hook, it was hard not to bob along and mirror her hip flicking moves.
It was cool to see a relatively simple staging concept set the scene effectively thanks to two sets of decks – one lit up to read ‘Winston’, the other ‘Surfshirt’ – on either side of Surfshirt and his fluorescent-lit mic stand, giving off a dramatically holy effect alongside his white tee and long scruffy hair. There wasn’t any preaching but plenty of praising in the room as the band kicked off proceedings.
Their second single ‘Ali D’ featured early on, which meant the bulk of the night was filled with tunes recognisable from previous sets, helping familiarise the crowd with a taste of just what’s to come for the band. Thanks to some stanky bass and trombone bubbling its way through the setlist, the dynamics were solid – without them, the group wouldn’t nearly be as impressive live.
The seductive ‘Be About You’ felt like it came around all too quickly to close out the set, until Surfshirt said: “We’ve got one more real song and then we’re gunna fuck some shit.”
Scampering in and out of the audience, Surfshirt breathlessly pumped out Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Humble’ and Pharoahe Monch’s ‘Simon Says’ before popping above the heaving masses for Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’. It was an encore, and a moment, that certainly couldn’t have been predicted but will leave many saying “I was there” for years to come.
Winston Surfshirt played Oxford Art Factory on Thursday June 22.
