DRY CLEANING – LIVE: REVIEW
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
DRY CLEANING
Vivid Live, Sydney Opera House, May 29
THIS IS A BAND WITH SPECIFIC, identifiable personalities. Not the musicians themselves – I don’t know them; I’ve just listened to them, so don’t go basing a dating profile on what would be my ignorant say-so – but the music, the way these instruments are being played, the message conveyed in the cracks between the people and the space between the notes. And these “personalities” in some kind of alignment is why Dry Cleaning feel like a single entity of consistently staggering impact.
The bass lines enter and leave with a wide-legged walk, part swagger and part saunter, that suggests leadership assumed but not imposed. They don’t need to check if they’re being followed, it’s a given; they’re not asking for directions, it is known. The guitar parts are the occasionally needling but always up-for-it friend who bounces along beside him, dancing around with enthusiasm, sometimes unpicking entrances with precision, sometimes lashing out sharply, briefly antagonised, only to resume the conversation like it was a storm passing. It becomes clear that thrills spill out regularly, genius often enough, and you have to keep up.
In this company the drums don’t try to compete, happy in the knowledge that they’re the hum of connection, not so much a bridge between the two strong forces as the forceful source of the energy that can be drawn on as required or simply clear space for the voice. Ah yes, the voice.
Speaking rather than singing, she remains calm, engaged rather than diffident, never too much or too little. It is the voice of mild scepticism, of measured excitement, of the friend you want to impress because that admiration is never causally doled out. She isn’t leading, she isn’t following, she’s simply part of the deal. So deal.
Line these up in Scratchcard Lanyard and something that arrives as all elbows and knees coordinates into a whole-body dance that peels back expectations in its agitation. What began as prickly ends up as unwrapped. Let Rocks have its way and it is a mass pogo directly on your head, not trying to smash you but relentlessly tapping you down ‘til you are a fixed post in the ground, and a flag has been mounted on for display. Don’t Press Me comes out as if the last class of the day has emptied and everyone is sprung from cages out on highway year 9. A suicide rap? Nah, you gotta know how it feels, and it feels real.
But then Let Me Grow And You Will See The Fruit is a quiet charmer, not a phrase anybody ever thought of in relation to Dry Cleaning, and Conversation is the sort of mid-tempo near-ballad a less adventurous band might bulk up and feast on in a classic rock way, but instead what we get is The Cure meeting Mogwai on neutral territory and maybe, just maybe, being outshone for a few minutes. Especially by that guitar.
The last time Dry Cleaning played in Sydney I cursed the venue for its poor sound that blurred at best but most often buried the voice, putting not just a dampener but a whole winter’s load of wet blanket on my excitement at finally seeing them. That room really does have terrible sound, but I have to retrospectively modify my criticism now as tonight suggests that burying may be a policy choice not an accident of gig circumstance. It’s their sound guy, it’s their call, and it’s not the first time.
It may be that making the voice just one of the sonic elements not a lead is in keeping stylistically, a post-punk all for one/one for all frontal assault, the way the brief deployment of saxophone operated. But the problem is the stories of the latest album, the earlier albums’ non sequiturs that began to make more sense the less you tried to understand them, the lyrical cuts and flips – and let’s not forget the drollery! – are as crucial as the acid raindrops guitar, and we don’t get them enough.
But … but … but it’s hard to argue with the physicality of our response to Dry Cleaning. That was pretty damn good.
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Dry Cleaning play:
Meow Nui, Wellington New Zealand, June 2
Hollywood Avondale Auckland, June 3
The Naval Store, Perth, June 6
Ballarat Civic Hall, June 7
Odeon Theatre, Hobart, June 11