:: The Strokes / Kings of Leon / The Mess Hall at the Palais Theatre, St.Kilda - January 04

By: Carmine Pascuzzi

Having loved their two albums and not seeing them since their first promotional trip to Melbourne a couple of years ago, much anticipation surrounded the appearance of The Strokes on their Big Day Out tour. At the Big Day Out two days earlier, the band seemed to be in warm-up mode as they played a quick-fire forty-minute set at the Melbourne Showgrounds outdoor stage. But one had the feeling that the best was yet to come in the theatre setting of the Palais Theatre. First up, though, was The Mess Hall, the local two-man band who have demonstrated their ability in delivering their brand of rock as well as some four-piece bands can deliver. Accordingly, they’ve been noticed more and more through scoring excellent support gigs and made a real impression with their last release, ‘Feeling Sideways’. It was a good beginning to the strong sounds that we were in for later.

A first-time visitor to Australia was Kings of Leon. They are good mates (and on same label) of The Strokes and they were duly invited to be the main support for this show. Comprising three brothers and a cousin, the band obviously gels very well and they played a fervent set with songs mostly from their very good ‘Youth And Young Manhood’ album. Just a little patch in the first half of their set lacked some inspiration, otherwise, the band drew upon their driving guitar sound to pile through the last few numbers strongly to leave a good impression.

The Strokes burst on to the scene in a big way with their album ‘Is This It?’ and sparked off enormous reaction to their sure-fire, garage rock style. A few months ago, their second album ‘Room On Fire’ was released. No bubble-bursting here. These guys elevated their standing and the audience was poised for a tremendous display of rock music. It breathtaking to see Julian Casablancas ripping into their short songs and his band mates provided one of the tightest levels of guitar playing I have ever seen. They were simply brilliant. The Strokes doubled the amount of time on stage from two days earlier and they showed a subtle beauty underneath their charismatic presence. Naturally, there was a sprinkling of both albums on show. It was staggeringly good to hear ‘Last Nite’, ‘The Modern Age’, and ‘The End Has No End’. The band was in great form by the time they got to ‘Reptilia’, a brilliant song that will soon be released as a single. The dynamic nature of the song really got things fired up. The only drawback from a viewer’s perspective was that the fans were keen to stand and move to the music, but the seating arrangements didn’t really allow for it. But that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm from watching the New Yorkers at their triumphant best. It will take an enormous effort for anyone to beat this as the best show for 2004. A brilliant performance.