Dance Gavin Dance, Veil Of Maya @ Jive, Adelaide 4/3/2018
Adelaide in March is electric. The streets are mingling with people and at the Hindley Street end, they are awash with metalheads, punks, emo’s and goths alike. While at nearby HQ Millencolin work their magic, Jive Bar is part of a national sold out tour featuring California’s Dance Gavin Dance and we were blessed to be there.
Opening the proceedings are Veil Of Maya, who start with the energetic Nyu. The band hit the stage at a good pace before cranking through the gears. Vocalist Lukas Magyar gets the crowd clapping and chanting away as his vocals range from depths of hell to soaring the heavens.
While the opening salvo’s come with the brutality of an atomic bomb going off, the bands melodic sensibilities kick in at Doublespeak and Overthrow. The pit opens up as the crushing riffs from guitarist Marc Okubo and the earth moving bass from Danny Hauser pound.
It’s a short set packed with a punch in the face as each song performance shudders the room. Finishing with Lucy and Mikasa the band have shown how a band can rise from hell and yet sound refreshing and vibrant.
For Dance Gavin Dance it’s all about filling the set with killer, not filler. The six of them take to the tiny stage and instead of letting the cramped confines hinder the performance; they channel it outward into the sold out venue.
Starting with Son Of Robot it’s clear why they’ve become so popular. The vocal melodies between the bands two main vocalists, Tilian Pearson and Jon Mess, are so dynamic that even the venues door alarm can’t halt them during Frozen One.
Like any good monster, the door alarm comes back again during Suspended In This Disaster however this crowd is loving every moment. The floor space is more tightly packed than Steel Panther’s spandex pants so that a pit cannot form. What they can do though is bellow the vocals back at the end of Count Bassy, which is almost like a choir is that’s perfect.
Dance Gavin Dance are not a band that can be easily popped into a genre, tracks such as Flossie Dickey Bounce has a cool funk vibe to them while others, such as Death Of A Strawberry are almost driven by a disco beat. Lemon Meringue Tie and We Own The Night though bring a reggae vibe to the table and each one of these styles is greeted with passion from the crowd.
The band finish up with the epic Inspire The Liars, which ends in a cacophony of noise that cannot be described but only felt in the parts that give you shivers. They end with Evaporate, just under an hour after starting, and it’s clear that Dance Gavin Dance have entertained tonight with their many cross sections of styles merging. I can safely say Gavin wasn’t the only person dancing last night.
Live Review By Iain McCallum