Crayon Fields- No One Deserves You Album Launch

It's been six years since the last Crayon Fields album was released, so it was definitely a time to celebrate with the album launch for No One Deserves You at Howler tonight. Opening proceedings was indie band The Goon Sax from Brisbane. This teenage trio played an excellent set, with everyone taking a turn on lead vocals at some point. They are definitely an act to keep an eye on, and will be releasing their debut album next year. Second on the bill was Totally Mild, who played a much more coherent set than the last time I saw them opening for Oh Mercy.

I have loved Crayon Fields' previous albums, but for some reason never managed to see them live before tonight. Their set was just as dreamy and fantastic as I was expecting it to be. They started with "Slow Magic" and played most of the songs off of No One Deserves You throughout the set. Highlights were "No One Deserves You," "If I Could," "She's My Hero" and "Somewhere Good," which is my favorite track off the album. Lead singer Geoffrey O'Connor was quite funny with his little antidotes in between songs. It was also great to get to hear the tracks "Disappear," "Mirror Ball," "Voice Of Paradise" and "All The Pleasures Of The World" off their last release. The evening ended with them playing "So Do I" for an encore. Overall it was a great set and I wish they would have played for longer. Hopefully they will do some more shows in the future to support the album.

Here's the video for "She's My Hero"

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: