#thenaysayers

I have been told recently since joining a punk and metal music radio show called Moshpit with a youth run community radio station called SYN, that there are a lot of great music venues and bands in Melbourne which cater to my musical needs. Myself, thinking I had to wait months and years for my favourite classic bands who are still touring and releasing new work to come to Australia, have been a bit naive in the sense that I have not bothered to even look around my home town for local, modern talent.

For my university course, I have to do a short film, and I decided I wanted to do a documentary on bands in Melbourne.  I got a couple of suggestions from a friend at Moshpit, for some bands in Melbourne that I could do my project on. He suggested a whole list of bands and artists for me, and I decided to go with The Naysayers, I listened to some of their music on Youtube and I was sold.  For the final part of my short film documentary, I wanted to get some shots of them at a gig.

The gig I decided to go to was on the 7th of October at LuWow in Fitzroy.  LuWow is a small and intimate place, tables to the sides, booths towards the back of the room, a dance floor area in front of the stage, and a bar right at the back of the room. The place had different coloured flashing lights, and decorations including skulls which lit up different colours also.  My mother, who has been helping me with my project, came with me to the gig, and we decided to buy a drink. They did not have Jack Daniels, which I requested my mother to buy, instead I settled for a drink special they had called “Smoke and Coke”. It was definitely a different tasting drink.

When The Naysayers started playing at just after 10.30pm, there would have been no more than 20 people in the room, however the music was loud and there was energy on stage, the band did not let the small crowd stop them from delivering a powerful performance. There were some young adults who showed up not long after the show began, they started dancing, and then sat back down again.  As the show went on, more and more people began to file in, some getting straight onto the dance floor.

The bands show was great, they were full of life, consistent and even made jokes during the show, as they stopped in the middle of the song after what I suspect was an equipment failure. Gordon, vocals/lead guitar and Harry, vocals/guitar, were frozen in place, and Nathaniel was making a joke that they had to stay frozen in position until the equipment was fixed up.  Gordon and Harry were able to stay in position for about a minute before Nathaniel said to the crowd, “That's what their sex faces look like”, and Gordon cracked up laughing.

During the show and definitely towards the end, there were a lot of people putting beer bottles up onto the stage. I didn't understand what they were doing or why.  Maybe this is a part of the music culture and scene in Melbourne, or maybe I’ve never seen it before because I’ve only ever gone to major concerts. In a break between songs, Gordon helped Nathaniel to drink one.

The closing song by the band was Gloria, a cover. By this time, the dance floor was full with people dancing, drinking and having a good time.  This is a classic song that most people love, and the band certainly made sure the show ended with a bang. Gordon, carrying a corded microphone, put down his guitar and got into the crowd and sang the song from in there. The vibes were unreal. The atmosphere was electric. As Gordon got back on stage, and The Naysayers finished their set, they got a big round of applause.