COG – Gig Review 1st March @ Northcote Theatre, Naarm/Melbourne, Vic
Cog
Northcote Theatre, Naarm/Melbourne, Vic
March 1st, 2024Support: Kodiak Empire, Yomi Ship
Australian alternative heavy music went through a real renaissance period during the 2000s, and the first half of 2024 is feeling like a nostalgic throwback to that era. To this scribe anyway. We’ve had Mammal, The Butterfly Effect, tonight is COG, and in a few months, we have Karnivool, all massive players in that scene at that time.
It was a heavy and vibrant era. I loved it at that time, and I’m loving this nostalgic glimpse into that age.
The support acts are all about ‘now’, however – first up is Kodiak Empire, a five-piece from Brisbane who formed a little over ten years ago. The first thing we notice is, since Lucius Borich’s (currently covered) drum kit and riser dominate the stage, KE’s drums are pushed all the way to the right of stage as you look at it. It doesn’t affect the sound of the band however, and on the dot of 8:00pm they begin their set, laying out their melodic sounds for a steadily growing Northcote Theatre crowd.
Kodiak Empire’s style is progressive, in a somewhat low-key way manner. They do not share the bombastic progressive approach of the headliner, and that’s perfectly fine. They are happy to let the melody and the ambience of it all carry the day, and their music swoons at you rather than smashing you in the face, the keyboard textures contributing strongly to this.
That said, their presentation is a dynamic one – the overarching ethereal vibe to their sound explodes into chaos at times, frontman Bryce Carleton launching into unexpected screamy territory, catching us all a little off-guard (in a happy and welcome way of course.) It’s always good to keep your audience their toes, to never be predictable.
That said, while musically impressive, this band may wish to work on their stagecraft and presence a little – it’s just a touch staid at this stage. A touch more energy, movement and vibrancy would not go astray, let the crowd know you are enjoying what you are doing, so we are more likely to as well.
Overall however, and that criticism aside, Kodiak Empire put on an absorbing, if brief, opening set, and we are now ready for what’s still to come.
It’s truly a nation-spanning bill tonight, which is fantastic. The headliner hails from NSW, the openers from Brisbane, and first support, enigmatic all-instrumental act Yomi Ship have come all the way from the wild west to be a part of this celebratory evening.
Yomi Ship is a trip. A journey into weird, wild and wonderful soundscapes, a joyous clash of post-rock and psychedelia, and the evening dives even further into left field.
As this band plays its long, meandering but compelling pieces, it gives one a sense of wonder as to how such atmospheres and such experimentation can emanate from only three people and a basic guitar-bass-drums setup. But this band manages to enthrall the majority of the crowd for their 30-minute middle set, despite the lack of vocals and despite the low-key vibe of their presentation (at the same time, and like Kodiak Empire, Yomi Ship have their chaotic moments that break things up nicely.) The jazzy elements they inject into their sound at tasteful and appropriate points certainly add to the interesting nature of their sound.
So not only is it a geographically broad evening’s entertainment, it’s wonderfully musically diverse as well.
It’s difficult to get your head around the fact that COG’s monumental, elemental album The New Normal is almost two decades old now, but that’s where it sits. Tonight we finally get to celebrate the release of both of their superb albums – TNN from 2005 and Sharing Space from 2008 – on vinyl, releases that had apparently been held up for a long time due to ‘record company bullshit’.
Better late than not at all, as it means we get to see them play live, a pretty rare occurrence these days. Certainly compared to that mid-late 2000s heyday.
Being that this is a celebration of the vinyl releases of those two albums, the band focus the entirety of their set on those records, so nothing from before or since. This feels appropriate (I myself hear two out of my three favourite COG tunes, ‘Real Life’, ‘My Enemy’, but unfortunately no ‘Bitter Pills’. But hey, two out of three ain’t bad!), and makes for a very crowd-pleasing show. Most of the crowd knows most of the words, from albums 15 to 20 years old, and we have no inhibitions about belting out their meaningful, politically-charged lyrics with Messrs Gower, Gower and Borich (‘My Enemy’ and ‘Bird of Feather’ being particular singalong favourites), the latter who continues to be the epitome of the term ‘perpetual motion’.
Tonight is superb value for the punters’ money too, with 13 tracks played and the set stretching out to an enthralling and powerful 85 minutes.
Cog are another one of those bands that have you wondering, ‘how does so much sound come from just three people?’ It’s a combination of skill, know-how (two concepts that are similar but still distinct) and experience, and this band possess those three traits in droves.
They also remain one of those ‘what if’ bands, in a similar way to Mammal and indeed The Butterfly Effect, in that they split up at the very peak of their powers, only to return several years later with all of their musical abilities and hardcore following still intact but facing a virtual complete loss of momentum.
Indeed, the thing about all these bands, bands that had their creative and commercial peaks in the 2000s, is that they’re all just as good now as they were then. The band members are all older, they have a few more grey hairs and wrinkles (as we all do), and as collectives, they may not have the same level of hunger and focused and affirming anger raging inside them as they once did, but they are far from diminished as players and performers. They’ve all still ‘got it’. It’s just a slightly older version of it.
Let’s hope these superb bands can reach somewhere close to former glories, if that is indeed what they wish to do . . .
Review by Rod Whitfield
Setlist
Real Life
Are You Interested?
Anarchy OK
Swamp
Sharing Space
What If
The Spine
Charades
The Town of Lincoln
Run
My Enemy
Bird of Feather
Problem Reaction Solution
COG - The Vinyl Tour 2024
