Live Review
TADZIO @ The Bearded Lady
The story about the dirty and trashy guitars and the feel good minimalist drums begins and ends at The Bearded Lady in West End; a continuously thriving music venue, that has always shown an interest, and eagerness, for hosting bands that some of the more conventional venues may stick their noses up to, for the fear that they may be a little to weird, or a little to noisy. But hey, weird and noisy is cool, I for one love weird and noisy, and the bands I saw today were nothing short of a brilliant combination of those two wonderful elements.
The first band I stumbled onto were the brilliantly zany outfit known as Whalehouse. For those who don’t know these local Brisbane girl-punkers, they are seriously fun and never fail to put on an energetic and entertaining show. Think of a more thrashy and slightly more colourful, all girl version of Gooch Palms and you’ll get close to their aesthetic. Either way, it would probably be easier, and much more fulfilling, to actually go see them than read my obscure descriptions as they will either have you slightly jumping around or make you watch in awe with a huge grin on your face.
A beer and a smoke and it’s on to the TADZIO, and by the time their due to start the small venue is packed out and buzzing. As the two lo-fi, garage-punk girls from Japan set up, you begin to get a taste and a feel for what’s about to occur and it’s brilliantly exciting to wonder whether or not you’ll be able to hear properly for the next few days. As soon as they are about to begin they usher in broken english to wait for one moment before stumbling backstage and returning with their signature cat masks that only cover the upper part of their faces. Then it’s just a brilliant wash of buzz and fuzz and bottomed out bass that never stops amazing you, or compelling you to dance as though you've been possessed by a demonic garage spirit. This feeling, I could assume was not only the case for me, but for so many others of the crowd who were also swaying about and noticeably enjoying the noise smashing out at them whilst the two girls screeched words at you over the top. All in all these guys absolutely killed it, with the room staying pretty much packed out throughout their entire set, and with almost everyone I heard talking about how fucking sick they really were.
- Kacper Majchrowski