Melbourne's guitar god and prince of funk, Darren Hart, the mastermind behind Harts, wrapped up his latest album tour for Smoke Fire Hope Desire at The Triffid last Saturday, supported by keytar legend Yeo.

Performing within a surreal geometric projected environ, Yeo set the tempo for the night early on with his special blend of bass-heavy electro-pop. Playing alongside his live drummer, Andrew Congues, Yeo had the crowd grooving around to tunes from last year's album Ganbaru. Lines, bars, squares AND rectangles bounced around the inside of The Triffid's hangar in sync with Congues' digital percussion that rose with fast and light snares and dropped with vibration-heavy bass lines. The shining moments of the set came with Yeo's keytar riffs in songs like Quiet Achiever, no-one can ignore a man with a keytar. His smooth vocals in Got No Game and Icarus mellowed the crowd out before handing the stage over to Harts.

Walking on stage in a simple white t-shirt/black leather jacket combo, a change from his usual colourful Hendrix/Prince inspired wardrobe, Harts gave a big shoutout to the crowd for coming down to support his new album launch. Opening the set with Smoke, Harts kept building up the energy in the room until even the fantastic air-conditioning at The Triffid couldn't keep up. He got the funk going in Lovers in Bloom, dancing around the stage before playing his new lo-fi, heavy insta-classic Fear in Me with plenty of lines for the crowd to sing along to.

It wasn't until later in the set when the crowd witnessed the iconic guitar shredding that makes Harts stand apart from other bands. The energy and enthusiasm he plays with really starts to show as his guitar becomes an extension of his soul. His facial expressions only amplified those high-pitched whammies. He smashed out an epic solo for his new hit Peculiar before shining the spotlight on his band members for an extended jam during Breakthrough. Taking a brief moment offstage, they returned for one of the longest encore performances in The Triffid's history. During the solo for 2015's single All Rise (Play It Cool), Harts finally treated to crowd to his crazy, behind-head guitar solo. This kid's got it.

 He finished the night with the empowering hit Power, which brings together his multi-intrumental mastery and lyrical strength. Harts threw in a few stories he had picked up from his eight year journey to the song, largely to do with how he nearly quit music but was always encouraged by the people that came out to his shows (and speaking with Prince certainly helped). Asking the crowd to love each other, and saying thankyou for the thousandth time, Harts finished the night announcing he'll be touring the US later in the year.

-Nick Lewis