SET LIST: Cloud Control's Live Premiere of 'Dream Cave' @ Sydney Opera House
On Friday, 31st May, Cloud Control premiered their forthcoming sophomore record Dream Cave as part of Vivid LIVE 2013! Here's how the set went..
With the exception of supporting Weezer earlier this year on their Australian tour, Blue Mountains born band CLOUD CONTROL had taken a mighty long time to return to our shores since making the move to England some three years ago.
They released their debut album Bliss Release in 2010, with it's deluxe edition out the following year, but had kept quiet until only a few months ago about any sort of new material coming out. After the teasing of their blog and videos dedicated to their recording process, The Doctor premiered their sophomore's first single 'Dojo Rising' last Wednesday afternoon on Triple J. If you were like me and still felt that you needed more, you were probably at The Opera House's Joan Sutherland Theatre last Friday Night for the live premiere of the band's forthcoming record Dream Cave!
As part of this year's Vivid LIVE, Cloud Control owned the stage of the Joan Sutherland Theatre - the more intimate room of the iconic House's sails. With almost every seat of the room filled by a variety of age groups, the band wooed their audience through their evened out set list of one old song following a new song. Couple this with the exploding projections behind them and wondrous light show, it was a sophisticated Friday night ridiculously well spent.
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As the audience quietened down to the dimming of the house lights, a thick smoke covered the stage and the drips and drops of a wet cave beautified the PA system, before a video began to play on the back wall of the band's space. After showing us a deeper insight of their first video they released of them recording in Kent, a crazy welcome was led by the screams and shouts of the crowd as Heidi, Alister, Jeremy and Ulrich took to the stage, launching straight into the first track of the hour and a half set. It was after this electrified, psychadelic track that the band said hello, also informing us of the flow of the set.
From here we heard 'This Is What I Said' and a sweet new track called 'Boo Radley' that further personified the character in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.
Alister gave us his view of how much he appreciated the theatre, especially in comparison to "Candies, World Bar and Spectrum". This clarification of good taste evoked a merry laugh amongst the crowd before launching into a Bliss Release favourite, 'Gold Canary' that shone a beautiful, sunny yellow light over the four musicians. This soon turned into a crazy white beam of rotating light that spiralled along with Heidi's heavily reverberated vocals for their next dreamy new track. I knew we'd see more of her lead singing after Bliss Release left us with 'Beast Of Love'!
Regardless of the song's influence as it is dedicated to a "film about strippers", 'Just For Now' majestically silenced the crowd with it's initially soft instrumentation, before launching into the superbly passionate newbie, 'Promises' - this is going to be a stand out track for Dream Cave.
'My Fear' got the audience grooving in their seats before the live launch of Cloud Control's new single 'Dojo Rising' let loose. 'There's Nothing In The Water We Can't Fight' followed in it's customised live format before the country/folky new track 'Happy Birthday' (again sung by Heidi) minimised the extravagant live show by casting just three flood lights on Heidi, Al and Jeremy.
Bliss Release's opening track 'Meditation Song #2 (Why, Oh Why)' beamed out of the amps, leaving the next song 'Scar' to follow suit with its opening soft squeals of an intrinsic key line. By the end of 'Scar', Jeremy had replaced his bass with a black, hard case to hit along to with a pair of drum sticks for the band's "last" song of the night, 'Ghost Story'.
With the purpley haze covering both the stage and the band's idle instruments, a thunder of hand claps and foot stomps brought the humble four piece back for a couple more songs. Rather than getting right into it though, they took the time to thank friends, family and fans, as well as the unknown surnamed Nathan for his creativity in creating the brilliant stage set up that made us look like we were watching the band from inside a cave. We also learnt that some of the wonderful projections were very DIY, such as the milk and detergent combination that had been swirled together and filmed for the show's visuals.
The first half of the encore brought us a slow jam with super passionate vocals led by Alister Wright, constructing a beautiful energy accompanied by the galactic visuals behind him and fellow band members. From here we were reacquainted and bid farewell with their usual ending song 'Buffalo Country', found on their 2007 self-titled EP.
A perfectly balanced set fuelled by both new and old songs, Cloud Control definitely made up for their overdue home visit.
Judging by what was delivered on the night, Cloud Control's new album Dream Cave is a crafty body of work made up of a variety of sounds and experiments, and will be available to purchase via Ivy League on 9th August. It can also be pre-ordered through iTunes and JB Hi-Fi this Friday, 7th June!
Catch Cloud Control play Melbourne's Corner Hotel this Friday, as well as Byron's Splendour In The Grass at the close of July.
Words by Hannah Galvin.
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