The Jungle Giants absolutely tore up The Enmore Theatre on Friday night. On their “Quiet Ferocity” tour, the four-piece Brisbane outfit showed the sold out crowd that they are a force to be reckoned with in the Indie Rock scene. Hands, lighters, and even somebody’s crutches were in the air for long periods of the show as this eclectic crowd were wood by the fun, charismatic band.
A cold open of ‘She’s a Riot’ and ‘Anywhere Else’ off of their debut album “Learn To Exist” got the crowd jumping and gyrating. ‘Skin to Bone’ is an absolute stomper of a track, with up tempo bass lines making you want to move.
It wasn’t until ‘Waiting for a Sign’ that we got a chance to hear tracks from “Quiet Ferocity”. The new album is more polished and well produced, a change in direction for the band, with front man Sam Hales doing the production himself. With heavy electronic bass lines and tightly produced, layered sounds, it was going to be interesting to see the new work translate into a live show. First impressions are that, like with all work, it’s tough to get a four-piece band to sound as clean as a well produced album, so if you were expecting a tidy clean sound, you would have left disappointed. But that doesn’t mean the new tracks aren’t good. The live versions are more emotive and make you want to dance more. ‘Quiet Ferocity’, ‘Bad Dream’, and ‘On your Way Down’ are fantastic live, and I think more fun done live than on the album. A real highlight was the lasers being cracked out for straight up bass dance number ‘In the Garage’. Five minutes of a dark room, pounding beat, and green lasers added another dimension of variability to the show.
Sam Hales is an intelligent, fun, and charming frontman. Working the crowd with sincere words of the dream of playing at The Enmore Theatre, he interacted with the crowd, building an energy and connection to the band that so many don’t do well. After a technical issue meant that there was no power to the mic’s, meaning 2 minutes of silence, the first this Hales did was thank his sound and production crew by name for sorting out the issue, the sign of a genuine person. Bass guitarist Andrew Dooris floats about on stage waggling hips and interacting with the front row.
Playing for 1 hour 20 minutes, this was a great show, and The Jungle Giants made sure the enthralled crowd’s baying for an encore went fulfilled, and they went home sweaty, finishing the gig off with new tracks ‘Used to Be in Love’ and ‘Feel the Way I Do’. This show was recorded for Triple J’s like a Version, so if you can, check that out, if not, you’re going to have to do yourself a massive favour and get down to one of their gigs.
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author: Anthony Glanville
photo by: Bianca Holderness