Oh Mercy- When We Talk About Love Tour

Tonight Mary, Tash and I attended the kick off of Oh Mercy's When We Talk About Love album tour at Howler in Brunswick (I love a gig that I can walk to). The opening act was six piece band Crepes, who sounded great with their indie, jangly guitar sound. Next up was four piece Totally Mild, who had a very loose set due to DJing in the afternoon and enjoying themselves a bit too much.

Oh Mercy took to the stage and started the sold out gig with "I Don't Really Want To Know." It was good to hear some of my favorite tracks off the new album such as "Sandy," "All Roads Lead To You," "Let Me Be Him" and "Without You." There were some interesting screen projections from old movies and other sources during each song, with my favorite being the old school Collingwood footage - a brave choice considering their big loss to Richmond today. Mid-set Alex sent off the band to perform a beautiful solo version of "Lady Eucalyptus," which had the room listening silently.

We also got some songs from each of the previous releases, including "Stay Please Stay," "Keith St," "Drums" and "Lay Everything On Me." I must say that it is on these tracks in particular that I really miss Simon, Eliza and Rohan as the current arrangements really lack the nuance that they would bring knowing those songs inside and out. As is becoming tradition, there was a new cover song towards the end of the set with the band playing an impassioned version of Leonard Cohen's "One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong." The evening ended with "Deep Heat," and all in all it was a pretty straight forward show with some strong vocals by Alex.

Here's an acoustic version of "Lady Eucalyptus" from the BRAG Sound Sessions: