There are two factors that come in to play when seeing a band on a Sunday night, on one hand the crowd tends to be smaller and perhaps kind of weary from their weekend. But on the other hand the crowd tends to be eager and more loyal to the band. The crowd that have turned out for Local Natives’ second Australian tour proves no exception to the latter.

The modest yet willing crowd fills The Zoo barely past the sound deck but the atmosphere when Local Natives take the stage easily fills the room. Launching into ‘You & I’, from the onset the band prove they’re here to play. Vocals are carefully worked, rising and falling where necessary with well-practiced perfection. It’s a great starting track and from the onset places the band’s percussion, drummer Matt Frazier, squarely centre to counteract vocals, and with more input than on the bands latest album Hummingbird.

When Local Natives get to their third song ‘Wide Eyes’ the crowd erupt in to cheers upon hearing the song’s opening guitar work. Later I’d realise that this, like all songs from the bands first album Gorilla Manor, would be met with more giddy excitement than anything from Hummingbird. Somehow you get the feeling the band knows this though, and in a way don’t care, relishing in any crowd response as they blast away track after track to a doting audience.

As the show continues to dabble between albums, Gorilla Manor songs prove livelier and catchier, while songs from Hummingbird are given room to breathe creating a great contrast to observe Local Natives’ growth. Songs like ‘Black Balloons’ and ‘Heavy Feet’ are worked with darker intent, the percussion heavier and faster with a brooding emotionalism that highlights some unexpected subtleties hidden underneath spiralling vocals.

While the band disappears and the crowd waits for what in modern music has now become an obligatory encore, I remember back to the first time I saw Local Natives— at Laneway Festival in 2011. Back then the open-air stage of Laneway played to a massive crowd of indie youngsters who sung along to almost every word, and now just one album later the band hasn’t sold out The Zoo.

It’s a real shame not more people turned out to see Local Natives on this occasion, they really did deserve to look out and see a room at capacity. But to the band’s credit, they never let this hold them back. The finale rendition of ‘Sun Hand’s is loud and emotional and genuinely takes the breath out of the room. On this song Local Natives don’t just push themselves to the very edge of the line, the launch themselves from it and absolutely pull it off with heart wrenching captivation.

Any good gig will send you immediately back to a band’s recordings and with this, Local Natives have succeeded. And now as I listen to those albums I’m simply grateful.

Grateful that for one Sunday evening I was a part of the best kept secret in town.