Inland Sea
Live Spark is such a brilliant idea. For one, the Powerhouse is one of my favourite venues. Everytime I go there I am always flabbergasted by the design of the building. The outside is just so old and beautiful while the inside is quite the interesting! With all the different levels, I find myself occasionally forgetting about the music being performed and just letting my gaze wonder about the interior.For another, free music on a Sunday afternoon is the perfect way to get people to conclude their weekend in a chilled yet civilised fashion.
Inland Sea were playing on this particular afternoon. After hearing their harmonies with Hungry Kids of Hungary at Triple J's AusMusic Month Party, I was curious to hear what they could do in their natural habitat. Of the ten band members, five share the vocal duties, with another two solely on strings (violin and cello), while the other three making up the rhythm section of the band (guitar, bass and kit). What makes this band quite unique is the fact that all ten members play a pivotal role in the music making process. (Although with this many band members, I can't even imagine how they get together for band practice!) The strings played in almost every song, which was kind of interesting, but what was more so, was that one of the guy vocalists played the ukulele in almost every song also. Watching the singers quite closely, I was intrigued to discover that almost every song had a new lead vocalist, weather it be one of the three girls of one of the two guys. All the other played the part of the backing. This made the music quite polyphonic, which isn't a bad thing, but when they're doing this kind of music for all their repertoire, it gets a little same ol', same ol'. 'All Fall Down' their latest single off their newly released EP was definitely the highlight of the set though.
