From opening for RUFUS DU SOL in 2013 at the Corner Hotel to their own headline show at Forum Theatre, it is clear that Melbourne has a real soft spot for Crooked Colours over the years. With their new album ‘Langata’ receiving critical acclaim all across the globe, the Perth trio set out on their biggest Australian tour to date and bring absolute heat to the Forum Theatre in Melbourne on a cold and wet Sunday evening.
Kicking things off with the charismatic offering ‘Come Back To You’, Crooked Colours had everyone in the venue locked right in for what promised to be a sweaty evening. With three separate podiums setting Phillip, Leon and Liam in their battle positions, the polished flow from the three piece was taken to new heights with the introduction of arguably one of the best lighting show’s seen at the Forum for some time.
With tantalising use of blinders, lasers and strobes, ‘Hold On’ utilised the pulsating nature of the bass to blend with the extravagant lighting to further accentuate the club influence within the track. Further to this, ‘Show Me’ continued this march with the thumping bass acting as a trigger for the crowd to move into a dance bracket, which Crooked Colours fed off significantly and utilised a drum breakdown to intensify the venue, with the elaborate lighting matching second by second.
For new fans, Crooked Colours dove deep into the ‘Langata’ track listing they’d become familiar with all across the week as the feature album on triple J. Setting a romantic scene with a fog of red lighting across the room, ‘Just Breathe’ heightened its lush soundscape through the lathered guitar riffs standing on top of the grooving podium beneath. ‘Heart String’ utilised the halfway breakdown with the piercing keys and emphatic drums to activate the blinders across the room with impeccable results, whilst ‘Never Dance Alone’ caught everyone off guard with Melbourne’s Owl Eyes jumping up on stage with her angelic tones.
The latter half of the evening began with a change of pace, courtesy of their cover of Baby Bash x Frankie J‘s ‘Suga Suga’ that saw a mass appreciation from the crowd in the form of dance and yells of the lyrics. With Ivan Ooze jumping out on stage for ‘I Hope You Get It’ and in doing so further hyping up the crowd, Crooked Colours made sure fans got their monies worth through the back to back hits of ‘Do It Like You’, ‘Flow’ and ‘I’ll Be There’ further enforcing the uptempo energy on offer.
Wrapping things up with a true sound odyssey in the form of ‘Vera’, you couldn’t possibly imagine a more appropriate track to send off the evening. Melding their electronic and organic instrumentation in a beautifully composed journey, Crooked Colours manage to take their anthemic releases to a whole new dimension in their world class live show.
Crooked Colours’ ‘Langata’ tour continues this week in New Zealand, before wrapping up in Canberra and New South Wales. Fans can still grab remaining tickets here.
