The Omnific – Gig Review 14th Sept @ Northcote Social Club, Melb/Naarm VIC
The Omnific
Northcote Social Club, Melb/Naarm VIV
September 14th, 2024
Support: Lune and Sebasticide
Winter is lingering into spring in Melbourne, as it usually does. A wet, cold afternoon leads into a pretty frigid evening, my footy team lost in heartbreaking fashion last night, so I’m looking to a beautiful evening of live music in one of Melbourne’s fabulous intimate venues to return the warmth to my heart.
And so it does. First up is Sebasticide. Usually just a one-man instrumental project, that one man, guitarist Sebastian Garcia, has put a full live band around himself for what is apparently his first-ever live show. Behind him is an extraordinarily capable second guitarist, bassist (all three use headless guitars) and drummer (who shreds just as hard as the guitarists/bassist.)
If he/they are feeling any nerves about playing live for the first time in this context, they do not show it.
I am entering the bandroom just as they are starting their set, and my head snaps around towards the stage so quickly it almost gives me whiplash. Who are these guys? The speed, intensity and technicality with which they are playing could almost give them whiplash. But they take it in their stride and make it look easy as they shred out their blinding instrumental wizardry at a bazillion miles an hour.
It's fantastic when artists like this take their music to the stage to prove the naysayers wrong, proving that it’s not just a studio creation, that it can be pulled off in a live setting with some hard work and lots of rehearsal (assuming the four of them rehearsed a lot to pull off compositions of this complexity.) Sebastian even gives us a quick lesson in time signatures, rhythm, pulse and metre leading into one of his tunes that happens to be in 11/16 time. Despite the inherent complexity of its rhythms, it proves itself to be a catchy and groove-laden piece.
One thing I would like to see from him/them is a little more in the way of pulled-back/atmospheric moments to add dynamics/light and shade to the shredfest. It’s all just a touch too much after a while. But it’s a small gripe when you’re watching musicianship of such a world-class calibre.
Sebasticide provides an ideal thirty-minute opening set for this special night. The room is now packed, happy and ready for the rest of the evening. Lune represents the only vocally-oriented act on the bill tonight, and they take that ball and run with it.
In fact, they run their guts out, performing like their lives depend on it, like it’s their last ever show.
This band’s brand of fired-up metalcore always suits the live setting beautifully, the energy, the controlled brutality and the occasional moments of soaring melody add great value to any live bill, whether the bill is an all-metalcore one or not. Added to this, Lune’s musicianship is of a very high level, drummer Harrison Mills especially is a picture of perpetual coordinated movement.
Frontman Nathaniel Smith even makes a pretty damn good fist of audience participation, which is always a hit-or-miss proposition with a pub crowd. He gets the crowd waving our arms in coordinated arcs, shining our phones and cigarette lighters, and even conjures a couple of decent circle pits.
Lune’s set tonight is a forty-minute burst of visceral energy. They are very different to the other two bands on the bill, but highly appropriate to the vibe anyway.
What The Omnific do musically, with just two bass guitars and a drummer (and just a smidgeon of inoffensive digital enhancement here and there) is unique and astonishing. What they are achieving with their career, being what they are, being about as far from the mainstream as is imaginable, is nothing short of profound. Having been around for less than a decade, they have released three EPs, two extremely well-received full-lengthers and have toured nationally and internationally multiple times. Tonight, they do what is apparently their biggest ever headline show, playing to a ‘packed to the rafters’ Northcote Social Club.
It’s something to stand in awe of, be very proud of, these guys being an Aussie act, and it shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
And tonight they show just how much they’ve grown in a live setting. I’ve been going to see this band since before covid, at least, and while they were clearly extremely good at what they do, they are now a devastatingly impressive live act.
Their music has grown too. They used to create quirky, intricate twin-bass-driven pieces that made you go, ‘wow, is that just two bass guitars and drums?’ Now they write exultant anthems for the bass, that make you thrust your fist in the air and say, “YES! Life and music are grand!”
What all this adds up to now is that they are an idiosyncratic twin-bass three-piece who play music and put on a show that is worthy of arenas, as strange as that may sound. Whether they ever actually get to play in arenas is another story altogether, but they are definitely on their way somewhere.
Tonight, the positivity, the energy, the enthusiasm (especially from joyously extroverted drummer Jerome Lamatua), flows like a veritable tsunami off the stage and into the crowd, infecting every last one of us, and their set winds out to an epic one-hour and twenty minutes after we demand an encore. Again, this band is unique and special and needs to be nurtured and celebrated, and tonight they have headlined yet another superb evening of live musical entertainment in our magical musical city.
Review By: Rod Whitfield
