em eight three

M83
Thursday April 2
Metro Theatre, Sydney

I feel the urge to be serious. Maybe because M83 is such a serious band. So serious that frontman Anthony Gonzalez walked to the back of the stage halfway into their set, then screamed his Antiban lungs out at the Metro's sound man, who was apparently fucking up their show.

This didn't dampen the mood though. The venue was packed like an orge in a cubicle, even early on when The Dø played their solid support slot. It was apparent that punters were there to see some kind of musical art, and that's what they got when M83 stepped out - with or without perfect sound. Honestly, on the floor it was hard to tell anything was wrong.

All i could tell was that a massive cloud of shoegazey guitars and synths massaged the crowd with every opening riff, every build-up and every break down. Gonzalez, although a one-man-band, brought along a drummer tucked behind a perspex partition, a shy bassist/supporting guitarist and a ridiculously attractive supporting vocalist and keyboardist (nb: Steve agrees). Highlights were definitely "We Own The Sky", "Graveyard Girl" and "Don't Save Us From The Flames".

The show went like clockwork until they played "Kim & Jessie". About halfway in the vocals became ear-molestingly loud. You could see Gonzalez' frustration, as well as the other band members. That's when said shouting incident occured. After "A Guitar and a Heart", probably the best song of the show, the band hastily left the stage. It had barely been 40 minutes of playing.

Before the night went pear-shaped they returned for the encore, and i thought "Couleurs". Luckily the band did as well, and performed a drenching extended version of the Saturdays = Youth single.

Let's hope M83 make it back to Sydney soon. I suspect they'll be playing the Enmore when they do.

M83 - A Guitar And A Heart