Gig Watch: Yves Klein Blue

By Ali Hawken

Yves Klein Blue

Brisbane darlings Yves Klein Blue took hold of The Toff in Town on this particular Wednesday night for the launch of their latest single Getting Wise.

The four lads have enthusiastically toured about the country in past years, however until tonight I had not found such an occasion to see what all the hype has been about.

And there has been hype!

Having won MTV’s Kickstart competition two years back; inevitably there will be expectations for the quartet to make something of themselves.

Well, these boys surely made something of the hefty prize money ($20,000 no less), with some pretty nice gear to accessorize onstage.

But even expensive guitars do break sometimes, as frontman Michael Tomlinson discovered mid-set.

After what seemed like an eternal lull between songs, the young songwriter declares “I don’t believe this, the guitar’s f**ked!”.

After a few attempts to fix his six string, he opts to play his acoustic without any means of amplification, nor a microphone to project his vocals across the room. Instead, he plays About the Future on his lonesome, clambering off-stage to serenade the audience with a ballad of sorts.

Quite a mood change to their characteristically toe-tapping numbers as he bemoans “my heart’s shattered”.

I am not sure if this whole ‘broken guitar’ thing was staged in order to justify him playing such a song, if so then he doesn’t seem to be pulling it off as the few sporadic claps across the room soon cease their momentum. But if in all honesty his guitar really did commit musical suicide, kudos to Tomlinson for trying to be inventive in despite of the dilemma.

The others return to the stage to save their frontman from being eaten alive by the crowd, and following a quick guitar change, Yves Klein Blue are back in business. For all their youthfulness, they delve into their mischievous side as Tomlinson declares at one point during the show “this song is about having fantastic sex”; their onstage theatrics prevent them from taking themselves too seriously.

Charles Sale flits between keys and guitar throughout the set, showing an avid musical versatility. On guitar, he interchanges between rockabilly ska and psychedelic bluesy jazz riffs, while Chris banham leads the time changes with precision behind the kit, mixing up marching-like rhythms with syncopated beats.

Their frontman falls to his knees at the end of one catchy number as the others merge quite seamlessly into the opening bars of Getting Wise. “This is the reason why we are here tonight”, Tomlinson introduces the song to little response from the onlookers.

Having received ample airplay in recent weeks on Triple J, one would have thought everyone would have picked their socks up and had a bit of a jig, but despite a small group clapping along upfront, the rest did nothing of the sort.

On the microphone, the singer attempts a falsetto in vain during the single, a bit far reaching for his vocal capabilities. Unsurprisingly, they wrapped up the set with their hit from last year Polka, the lynchpin of the night for them.

Getting their polka rhythm out, so to speak, in almost something of an Irish shanty, this one gets a good number of punters cheers-ing and stomping along. “Come and have a drink with us” Tomlinson sings with several crowd members raising their beers in the air.

This track’s energetic, uncontained breakout toward the end winds into a kick arse guitar shred that shows the boys have some skills. Definitely a good note to end on.

With the mere exception of their conclusion, not a soul seemed to engage in this evening’s enthusiastic show, disappointingly so.

In saying that, it was a Wednesday night after all and the subdued venue choice with its typically mild-mannered crowd would have done nothing to help the matter, overshadowing their undeniable commercial viability.

I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and see them play again; different venue, different night.

Brought To You By The Dwarf