DOPE LEMON @ Astor Theatre, Perth - 21/10/16

Everyone heading to Astor Friday night was excited to see Angus Stone's new project live in action. The venue was full by 9 and still filling while The Money War took the stage and got everybody warmed up with their mellow soul/rock vibes. The music levels were quite low for these guys so i don't think they got quite as much attention as they deserved. 

DOPE LEMON came onto the stage surrounded by messily draped bulb lights and a huge stained glass orb light catcher that hung in the middle of the stage, sending patterns all around the room. The scene was set immediately and the band opened up with two off album tracks. A little more psychedelic to the rest of the released tracks, journey styled and mostly instrumental, but a lot of emotion and you could feel that from just watching the band perform. The drummer especially felt every single hit on that kit throughout the night.

They then started to play a few popular tracks, starting with ‘Coyote’. I missed the buttery guitar riffs in this track, they needed to be louder! ‘How Many Times’ came next, the drummer was in full form again running his drum sticks over the cymbals to create effects. There was too much bass in the room so you couldn't hear the guitars very well again or any of the high harmonies in the chorus, so that kind of killed this song for me.

The guitars finally made it to the front of the mix for ‘Stonecutters’, the crowd was starting to groove a little bit more now hearing those bluesy riffs, but they were short lived. ‘Marinade’ started and all we heard was the intro, then I heard the rest of the melody from the crowd singing it around me. The guitar riffs make this song, it felt like the flattest part of the night and it was Marinade! 

I travelled up to the back of the venue to grab another drink and turns out being in the mosh is not the place to be. ‘Fuck Things Up’ came on and the sound at the back was awesome! Apparently they had a harmonica on stage which I couldn't hear before and the guitars sounded amazing. It was a shame because most people were up the front. 

They played another new track for us taking us on another little journey and towards the end of this song the mix started to clean up a lot. By the time ‘Uptown Folks’ came on the sound was perfect and you could feel that throughout the crowd. People started getting on top of peoples shoulders and dancing. It started to get really fun!

They ended their set with a new tune and came out for an encore with two more fresh tracks. I really wish the whole gig sounded like this! Even though the crowd hadn't heard these songs before the energy was awesome and the band was really catching vibes from this. Despite missing a few of my favourite riffs here and there I'm still looking forward to seeing them play with The Beautiful Girls next year and I can’t wait for the new tracks to be released.