Brand New, Kevin Devine

Review: You can never quite be sure what you're going to get from a Brand New performance. Sometimes they are pure crowd pleasers; at other times their style is much more eccentric with long musical interludes and muddled setlists. Thankfully, at the Enmore, the kick-off to the band's first Australian tour in a long, long while, they go with the former.  

They are clearly conscious of how long fans have waited and what the audience want, hence they blend material from their back catalogue with songs from their latest offering, Daisy. And it works beautifully: the band are confident as a unit, feeding off the energy the audience hands them at every opportunity. The atmosphere tingles with both electricity and giddy anticipation, a fine example being the word-for-word mass singalong of ‘Okay, I Believe You'.

Brand New's fanbase; are notoriously loyal and enthused. Lyrics bounce off of the walls, almost daring to drown out frontman Jesse Lacey, who tonight is on game. There are no bizarre monologues or sharp changes in musical direction which he sometimes can fall prey. Instead they pull out firm fan favourites such as ‘Jude Law and a Semester Abroad', ‘Seventy Times 7' and ‘Sowing Season' alongside tracks from the new album. Technically, as always, they are spot-on. As Lacey strikes the opening chords of ‘Play Crack the Sky' as the show closes, the realisation that it's all but over has snuck up on an unsuspecting audience. Francesca Jarvis