What we expected from The Vaccines

Event: Upfront presents The Vaccines
Date: January 11, 2013 (Friday)
Venue: The Bee, Publika, Malaysia

Upfront is back with another night of intimate gig and this time, Brit-rock connoisseurs, The Vaccines hit the Malaysian shores and along with them is The Rubens, a new upcoming AUS/NZ talent (they’re on the line up for St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) as the opening act for the night. Lucky you Malaysia.

Meanwhile The Vaccines were in the holding room hanging out, The Rubens warmed the crowd up with a 9 song set, in which they played their famous My Gun; which is fit to be a Bond theme song. The Rubens took their guns and shot their fans with their wonderfully crafted songs which makes the listeners yearn for more.

After the soulful set by The Rubens, the seniors came to play. Kicking off with No Hope, The Vaccines gave the crowd a test of their sing along skills. Oh boy, the crowd did wonderful that they could be heard from outside as I was taking my cigarette break. “There is no hope, and there’s desperately, no hope, and there’s definitely, no hope, If you don’t believe me. Oh.”

The Vaccines then wrecked the hearts of the fans with Wreckin’ Bar and I Always Knew, and then took things back a few steps by playing some old songs from their previous album, A Lack of Understanding and The Vaccines got the kids instagramming when they played Wetsuit Instagram. Too bad there were no wetsuits involved.

Photo credit: Rizki Maulana // The Spool

Taking a notch up on the beats, the band proceeded to get the gig goers dancing to the fast paced Teenage Icon. Well, that’s what the teens should be doing anyways, dancing and having fun! Then the band hits sparked the flames and hits it off with Post Break Up Sex which made some gig goers who were taking a cigarette break outside ran in and started singing along. Exhausted from all that dancing around, The Vaccines went a little softer with All In White and proceeded with Change of Heart and Blow It Up.

In my opinion, The Vaccines should’ve ended the set here, or at least with If You Wanna as an encore. It was the song with the most positive vibe and feedback that night. 3 crowd surfers, the front barricade needed reinforcement and girls can be seen climbing their boyfriends’ back. For encore, The Vaccines played Bad Mood, Wolfpack and their happiest song ever, Norgaard. Which made the listeners happy for the rest of that week. Well, for me at least.

Contributed by Rizki Maulana (@rzmaulana)
More photos from the gig taken by Rizki here.

* If you would like to contribute your reviews on concerts you have been to and/or new bands/albums/songs you have recently heard, feel free to drop me a line here.

Retreat, retreat… with the 65daysofstatic

Event: Upfront presents 65 Days of Static
Date: January 8, 2013 (Tuesday)
Venue: The Bee, Publika

After a long hiatus, Upfront is finally back with a bang. So far, they’ve announced 4 shows which are 65daysofstatic, The Vaccines (feat. The Rubens), Dia Frampton which happened earlier this month and later this March, Grimes. Promising you intimate evenings of thrills and frills, Upfront chose The Bee, Publika as the venue for their 2013 series.

65daysofstatic kicked things off from an earlier album with Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here. And as the music starts, you just know that it’s going to be a night to remember. The band then proceeded with something new, Piano Fights from their latest release, We Were Exploding Anyway. Something much more familiar for new listeners who just picked up their album. However, the band felt like the lights were too bright for their liking and asked the lighting engineer to shut the lights off. “If we were meant to be seen for these lights, we wouldn’t be fat.”

After Await Rescue and Install a Beak in the Heart That Clucks Time in Arabic, 65daysofstatic got people off their feet and started jumping around with Crash Tactics. The band also told the crowd to squat down and wait for the part of the song to jump up (think of Slipknot’s jumpdafuckup). The jumping around also led to a few crowdsurfers. Definitely not your everyday post rock gig.

Photo credit: Rizki Maulana // The Spool

Picking up where they left off, 65daysofstatic took things more electric without their guitars and things went crazy. Weak4 sent pulses of eargasms to the crowd which got them cheering for more. The intimacy between the crowd and the band was so strong.

Things got dark, squatting and jumping were involved, Japan, Debutante, Taipei and Mountainhead were played. Then the time of the night came, the last song. PX3 was the song of choice and during the last transition, we just can’t believe that that was the last song. “Retreat Retreat!”, shouted a fan. There it goes, the power of one shout triggered the whole restaurant to shout “Retreat Retreat!”.

You guessed it right, Retreat Retreat was the encore. And as the familiar intro was heard: the xylophone, the electronic drums and finally the recording, “We will not retreat, this band is unstoppable!” It was like everyone was waiting for this. Everyone danced in trance, joy filled the air of The Bee that night. But 65daysofstatic wouldn’t let the fans down when they began chanting “Radio! Radio! Radio!” and so the set was closed with Radio Protector.

Contributed by Rizki Maulana (@rzmaulana)
More photos from the gig taken by Rizki here.

* If you would like to contribute your reviews on concerts you have been to and/or new bands/albums/songs you have recently heard, feel free to drop me a line here.