Opening the night were female duo Pleasure Symbols, with a dark, synth-heavy set. It was painfully beautiful as their monotone droning filled the room and captivated you. With little happening on stage, you still couldn’t look away, perhaps unsure as to whether you liked it or not. Following on from them in complete contrast were Sydney band Straight Arrows. Their set definitely woke you up with their garage-punk-dance music and super-fun high energy.
The Grates made their entrance shortly afterwards clad in all-black with capes and pentagon necklaces. All except lead-lady Patience Hodgson, who sported an orange faux-fur jacket with an eccentric floral collar over a silver jumpsuit finished with tinsel-toed, white ankle-length go-go boots – she definitely stood out.
Opening their set with ’19-20-20’ from their 2006 album, ‘Gravity Won’t Get You High’, had the audience dancing from the get go. They included hits from their newest album, ‘Dream Team’, such as ‘Wild One’ and ‘7-Eleven’, as well as other popular favourites including ‘Turn Me On’, ‘Burn Bridges’ and ‘Aw Yeah’ – all well-known tracks among the audience.
Many people in the crowd had obviously amped up their bizarre style for the night, in tribute to The Grates, sporting fur coats, wigs, fluffy scrunchies and earrings and platform shoes. Someone brought a beach ball that made its way around the room from hand to hand. There was also a blow-up kangaroo floating around here and there and glowsticks getting thrown and passed about as well. The sold-out show had a huge variety of people crammed into the room all singing each song word for word while dancing the night away.
Throughout the night all three bands experienced some feedback interfering with their sets, but it didn’t seem to bother The Grates as they just smashed out hit after hit. Their high energy seeped its way into the tempo causing many songs to be sped up. This was often insignificant and just added liveliness to their already dynamic songs, in some moments, however, you could hear Patience rushing over lyrics to keep up – she never missed a beat though.
Patience threw roses into the audience as she confessed her love for us all over and over again. Her vocal performance was impressive as she jumped around the stage dancing, and even crowd surfing, she was still able to reach every note and produce her strained, yet strong sound with just the right amount of grit. It was the moments between songs when she was talking with the crowd that became a bit grating (pun intended). It often felt a little forced and awkward; I just wanted to hear the next song and keep dancing!
There is no doubt Patience is one of the stronger lead ladies of our generation. Although a mother now, after her display at The Triffid, I don’t see her and The Grates stopping any time soon. They seem to love what they do way too much.
They performed a high energy, fun, enjoyable and quality set.
To see this whole article, plus more photos from the gig, head to Scenestr.
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