A review of O’Ball I wrote for Kryztoff. It originally appeared in Issue 11 (April 1, 2010) of the online street mag.
Photograph by Jason Vandepeer
While votes were being counted, and nervous politicians prayed for Kerry O’Brien to give them good news, there was one small crowd of people defiantly turning up their noses toward the whole democracy shindig. They chose to converge on the University of Adelaide for the premier university campus music festival: O’Ball! The event boasted a solid line up of upcoming Australian bands, with appearances from Yves Klein Blue as well as Space Invadas, Cloud Control, Hot Little Hands, and local act The Waterslides.
Low attendance (although it was certainly still higher than what Kelly Nestor and jazz band got on their election coverage) made for a slow start, but by the time Cloud Control took the stage, everyone was on board. They have a reputation that somewhat precedes them, and from the beginning it was clear why. In between feet stamping, tambourine losing, and giving away the door prize, the band reeled off a warmly received set, including crowd favourites ‘Death Cloud’ and ‘Gold Canary’, as well as new single ‘This Is What I Said’.
Yves Klein Blue came on stage to an excitable crowd in the carpark mosh pit, and a cool-as-cucumbers crowd chilling out on the grass. They jumped straight into their upbeat set with ‘Dinosaur’, and managed to hold the attention of the fun-lovin’ moshers through a set of new material and old favourites like ‘Silence is Distance’ and ‘Getting Wise’. Those bohemians on the grass… well who cares about them anyway?
