The Bearded Lady has started putting on shows. As is the way of bars in West End, it pushes a vaguely rustic aesthetic while reaching for urban edginess. There are plenty of self-conscious bars that decorate with artifacts from dead trends: road signs, Readers Digest classics, machinery parts, a mish-mash of china and knick-knacks—objects primed to emanate atmosphere like a plug-in air-freshener. The Bearded Lady does all this but takes it a step further; there is a whole bicycle suspended from the ceiling.

I haven’t been to a "rock" show in awhile. Brisbane is all about electronic/dance/booty music at the moment, although there is still a thriving deadshit undercurrent. Partly because ‘You’ meld synths and pop with swampy guitars, and partly because it’s Thursday and there’s not much else to do, there is an uncomfortable meeting of the two scenes—girls with gold hoops rolling their eyes at boys in flannos.

As usual, the bands are mostly comprised of thin, young, brunette men. As usual, the audience is mostly comprised of thin, young, brunette men. The bartenders are, also, mostly thin, young, brunette men. I run into an old highschool pal who introduces me to one of his mates, a gently glazed skater with leather cords around his neck. His head is shaved, but I fear the worst.

You has four people on stage tonight: Michael Whitney, singer, guitarist, and ground-zero of the band, Luke Zahnleiter on more guitar, Alec Tullio on drums, and Cam Goodwin standing in for Heidi Cutlack on bass, though all the members migrate between instruments. According to their bio, You attempts to create a pastiche of pop music. This might seem as though they don’t make "serious" songs, or that they border on Weird Al territory, neither of which is true. It’s more a description of their sound; all their songs tonight sound a little woozy, as if someone got pop music drunk.

They open with "Caprice" (which is now out on 7” through Lost Race), a wry-sounding take on the breezy guitar style popularized by the recent dream-pop explosion. The guitar is drenched in reverb, and Whitney’s vocals hang low, set off by shimmering cymbals. The recorded version also has a nicely kitsch saxophone line, absent tonight, which is a perfect counterbalance to the weight of Whitney’s voice. Without the sax, the vocals might turn into a parody of the misery-chic of, say, Rowland S. Howard or Morrissey. But, because the sax is light n cheesy, it lends gravity to the rest of the arrangement.

On their second track, Whitney suddenly and unexpectedly launches into a helium croon, which floats blissfully above the sludgy guitars—in contrast, when he isn’t shifting pitch the vocals seem a little stuck in the mud. This is my favourite song of the night; it’s puréed country music—swaying music. Whitney downs the rest of his drink and then uses the glass to play slide. The sound across the whole set is emotional and warm, dense but not crowded: sad-cold-bedsit music made by people who grew up in the sunshine. By the end of the night, I feel like I’ve been tucked in.

You can listen to and buy 'Caprice' here.