Sydney trio Middle Kids’ calendar has been chock-full for over a year.
2018 saw them play over 70 shows abroad, on top of their shows at home, where they toured debut album 'Lost Friends' with time to spare for the festival circuit. This year the band took January off, then headed back across the country with Laneway Festival to give punters a taste of what was to come this month.
After two years of near non-stop performing, Hannah Joy, Tim Fitz and Harry Day are evidently comfortable enough in their set to let loose and have fun on stage.
In a velvet jumpsuit, Joy launches into 'Never Start' and takes in the crowd. With the lyrics: 'If we jump up and down together, maybe we’ll be fine', she sets the tone for the rest of the night – we are among friends.
The stage is covered in strings of plastic white flowers, which spill off instruments, lighting rigs, mic stands.
Joy’s husband, Fitz, wields a bass with Sharpie'd stars adorning its body, and a tri-coloured '90s windbreaker. Day lets Brisbane know he’s here for a good time every time he speaks, and they yell back appreciation for him between songs.
Two of the band’s big hits follow the opener in quick succession. 'On My Knees' sees Fitz craned over his bass, knees bouncing like shock absorbers in the instrumental fills between verses as Joy tosses her head to familiar beats.
The more delicate 'Salt Eyes' is a new favourite; live, it recreates the sour aftertaste of self-indulgent nights that have lost their glimmer, and brings the crowd down for the woozy vulnerability of 'Maryland'. Here, Joy gives The Triffid their first real glimpse at the power behind her vocals as it rings out in the last chorus, free-falling over Day’s steady drumming.
Fitz announces the next track as the band's “happy song”. 'Edge Of Town' is the most obviously anticipated song of the evening. But 'Don’t Be Hiding' is the one which seems universally relatable. I see people with their friends, parents, partners singing to each other, or arms reached out to Joy as she sings about loving “all your garbage, and your gold”.
Next follows the live premiere of 'Beliefs And Prayers', from a new EP set for release in May. The song is propelled by Day’s masterful drumming, unrelenting until the bridge, as Joy’s voice rises into a crystalline state, like Vera Blue over garage guitars.
“We came here for Laneway a couple of weeks back, and the crowd was crazy,” Fitz says. “Someone brought a chair, and he was crowd-surfing while sitting on a chair. I thought that was quite Brisbane.”
'Edge Of Town' comes mid-set. Behind the haze of blue smoke, a spotlit Joy hears streets “call [her] name”, and pulls the whole room with her to the upside-down, inside-out underworld of the lyrics. The energy builds and takes on a touch of the avant-garde, as Cameron Henderson embellishes the performance with a more jagged translation of the recording’s smooth slide guitar.
Joy and Fitz jump and shake with the audience right to the gasping release of the outro, ready to go into the second half of the show.
Fitz, who produces Middle Kids records, has previously detailed the minute nuances he labours over on their releases, nestling effects and extra tracks in places most listeners won’t even notice. Live, the band is challenged to recreate the details but their uninhibited energy bridges the gap and they convey the songs’ message with believable sincerity.
This is possibly most evident in 'Fire In Your Eyes'. Joy loses her guitar for one song and delivers a performance that could hold its own against Dave Le’aupepe in Gang Of Youths’ 'Let Me Down Easy'. She sways and wriggles across the stage, arms floating, then punching the air, or singling out members of the front row as she sings about excitement bubbling over in anticipation of a new relationship unfolding.
Some of the crowd are lucky enough to receive one of the white roses that she launches over their heads in a dorky, but sweet moment.
The set starts to wind down with a stripped-back rendition of 'Old River', harking back to a more “atmospheric” demo of the song Joy originally recorded. Featuring some more delicate harmonies on the second verse and a truly dazzling cameo from Day on melodica, it demonstrates the group’s ability to transport an audience to a very specific place without the support of big production and performance.
A two-song encore of 'Lost Friends' and 'Mistake' are the last we see of the band, and the performances are move-the-furniture, danceable fun.
But for me, the highlight of the night came at it’s natural endpoint, with 'Bought It'. Fitz rolls a string of bells between his fingers at the mic, a nostalgia-triggering touch that starts the slow, rolling build to a catharsis that sneaks up on me as Joy sings that she’s “got a lot of questions that [she] can’t see to figure out”.
It remains to be seen if the band will puzzle their way through the big questions they pose in 'Lost Friends' with the arrival of new music in May. But it’s the act of wading through the murkiness together that’s most inviting, anyway.
