Young Lions – The Foundry, Australia – September 30th, 2017
After releasing their third album, Mr. Spaceman, earlier in the year, Brisbane band Young Lions wasted no time embarking on a national tour which saw them travel several thousand kilometres to play six shows across Australia. And, after playing in Perth just six days earlier, they then made the 4000-kilometre trek to their home city to play two shows at The Foundry!
The first of which was a much smaller and much more intimate all-ages show held in the tiny front-room of The Foundry. Brisbane post-rock band Wolver, with their trio of guitarists, were a surprise support act and although their cymbals were deafeningly loud (mostly due to the tiny size of the venue), they played some interesting and surprisingly intricate stuff. Even though much of what they played wasn’t in their current discography, it was promising and surely triggered the ears of many in attendance to prick up.
The Comfort were next up. It cannot be put into words just how much their music style complements Young Lions. With their set being predominantly pulled from EP Love, they urged the crowd to come in as close as possible so they could also ‘feel’ what the band-members ‘were feeling’. Naturally, much love ensued and it didn’t take long before a guy in the crowd reached out and patted their bassist on the head and vice versa. Touching.
When the time came for Young Lions to grace the stage, the atmosphere noticeably changed, as it always does when the headliner finally makes an appearance. Vocalist Zach Britt set the mood by lighting some slow-burning incense, then opened with the equally slow-burning “Out of the Dark”, setting the mood beautifully for the afternoon. With just a few dozen fans crammed into a tiny room, it felt more like a jam session than a gig, but that was not how they treated it! It was clear from the start that they were here to put on a show fit for a stadium, except this was purely for a group of fans who were , at times, sung to mere centimetres from their faces.
With the band so close, no emotion went unseen as the passion burned in their eyes. Matt (having taped tissues to his cymbals to kindly save the hearing of those in attendance) sang along from behind his drumkit with just as much heart as Zach throughout the entire set. When the two singles from the album “Burn the Money” and “Destroy Me” were played, there was not a soul in the crowd who was not singing along at the top of their lungs as Zach put on one of his trademark high-emotion performances.
For “Better World”, Zach ran through the crowd and jumped atop the bar before treating the crowd to a beautiful improvised piano rendition of “Mr. Spaceman”. The fact Young Lions put so much heart and soul into a show – for so few people – just shows how much the music and their fans mean to them. 8/10
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