Sydney Opera House Thursday 1st June 2017
Being the first night of Winter, it was a cool night in Sydney as many thousands of people gathered around town to take in the spectacular light show that is the Vivid Festival.
As part of this festival, Sydney band The Preatures performed the world premiere of their new record “Girlhood” in its entirety and sequential order much to the delight of the 544 capacity crowd in the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House.
Having arrived on stage at 7.45pm you could sense the palpable excitement, and this was validated by the enthusiastic response that greeted The Preatures as they took their places on stage. Izzy (Isabella Manfredi), Luke Davison, Thomas Champion and Jack Moffitt looked pumped as the wait was finally over and it was their time to shine now with their new material.
A moment of silence followed before the bands ever reliable drummer Luke Davison got proceedings underway with a four count, then bang, they were into it with the uptempo title track to the new album “Girlhood”. “The 1st night” and "Yanada” slowed the tempo somewhat to allow a local Sydney school girls’ choir to join the band on stage. A joyous occasion for the youngsters.
The next two tracks were a little more low key with the brooding sounds of “Magick” leading well into Izzy stealing the spotlight on the keyboards for “Your fan”. A quiet song and a chance for the audience to appreciate her skills on the keyboard but that did not last long before the boys returned and got into “Lip Balm” with Izzy looking every bit the stunning rock chick, dressed in a pair of black tight latex pants and figure hugging white sweater prowling around the stage as if she was a caged tiger.
The next song was introduced by bass player Thomas Champion, “Mess it up”, because as he told us, that is what he does. The fast moving “Nite Machine” followed before lead guitarist, Jack Moffitt, switched from his Gibson guitar to his Fender for one of my favourite chocolates, “Cherry Ripe”. Before the last song on the new album was played, Izzy thanked the audience for sharing this special night with her and said “this new album was the hardest and best thing I have done in my life”. Jack then switched back to his Gibson for the laidback “Something New” to round out the set.
For the encore the band played familiar tracks from the “Blue Planet Eyes” album, including “Ordinary", "Somebody’s Talking" and “Is this how you feel” which got the audience up out of their seats.
This was the first time that the band had played publicly since the departure of Gideon Benson (rhythm guitarist and vocalist) and his comment after the show of “that was like watching my child walk down the aisle” was a gracious and moving way of describing his thoughts as a patron.
The Preatures have since announced an Australian tour with a show September 2 at the Enmore Theatre which will again give them a chance to showcase the “Girlhood” album which is due for release on 11 August 2017.
Mick “Chippy” Bettler
