From the 2010 smash hit ‘Big Jet Plane’, to creating the project that is Dope Lemon in 2016, Angus Stone is a staple name in the Australian indie music scene. An amalgamation of coastal rock and neo-psychedelia, this year’s Rose Pink Cadillac album proved why fans still flock to see Stone perform after all these years. Stone’s music is both idiosyncratic in it’s sense of play, and resonantly familiar to the great psych-rock jams of the sixties and seventies. The love for this type of music was palpable at Dope Lemon’s show last night at The Forum.
The crowd was full of obvious fans: a swarm of Breton hats and Penny Lane coats, with a strong hippie energy in the air. When Stone stepped on stage, dressed cooly in a lavish suit and signature hat, the crowd erupted with anticipation, friends turning to friends with excitement and couples already snuggling.
Performing fan faves like ‘Marinade’ and ‘Rose Pink Cadillac’, Stone’s stage energy carried a striking swagger, showing admiration for his band and swaying swiftly with his guitar. This coolness reverberated into the crowd. It wasn’t the type of show for heavy moshing or screaming lyrics, but one that paved way for pure appreciation for the music being played. The experience itself also carried a hallucinatory quality: colourful, strobing lights filtering the atmosphere and psychedelic visuals playing on the backdrop screen.
As beloved as Stone’s husky vocals are, especially during the departure ‘Kids Fallin’ in Love’, the talent of his band was equally as mesmerising. When you focused your attention on each member, they were completely lost in song, giving their all to the instrument they were playing. In the case of Dope Lemon, this was an unbelievable electric guitar; killer drums; mellow guitar strings and even an impressive harmonica solo.
During ‘Fuck Things Up’, a more sombre tune, a man moved desperately through the crowd to reach the stage, telling his neighbours that ‘this song has done so much for me, you have no idea. I need to get closer!’. Simultaneously, fans bopped their heads slowly and couples cuddled into each other. This instance illuminated the effect of Dope Lemon: an artist that means to you what it means to you, whether that’s a turntable favourite or memory of a time in love or life.
Article written by Savannah Selimi
Photo credit: Daniel Mayne