After seeing Good Morning live, you’ll want to wake up to their tunes the very next day.
These Melbourne-based slacker rockers really brought heart to their performance – the last show they’ll put on in Australia before heading off on a North American tour. It’s not like their year wasn’t going swell already. Releasing the well-received The Option in April, they’ve followed up this short but bitterly sweet effort with a string of new singles. This is hardly a surprise, given Good Morning have already proven to be one of Melbourne’s most prolific bands.
After Primo! and SB gave them a righteous warming up, the quartet, led by Stefan Blair and Liam Parsons, entered the Howler stage to a rowdy crowd. Ensconced in a murky, green haze, the band set up tuning their guitars before kicking into the sober but equally epic closing track from The Option, ‘Credentials (Lester & Eliza)’.
With its ruminative and creeping riff building in intensity until its climactic end, the crowd cheered and whooped as the band rocked out. They followed this up with the Blair-sung song ‘People Say’, which bounced along at a joyous and upbeat pace.
From there, little did the crowd know they were in for a special treat. Joining Good Morning on stage was Blair’s own father, Glenn Blair, busting out the saxophone. For three songs in a row, the band’s chilled-out guitar music was eloquently uplifted by his understated but impacting saxophone solos and riffing during choruses.
After stunning the audience with an invigorating synth solo during ‘Still Commit Crimes’, Parsons halted the show for a moment. Much to everyone’s surprise, he announced that they had in fact ‘tricked’ all of their fans into coming to an album launch. A show originally treated as a farewell was suddenly primed as a launchpad for their new album Basketball Breakups, set for release on Friday October 4.
The ensuing tracks went down very well, demonstrating a more nuanced and even tighter sound from Blair and Parsons. Latest single ‘Garden’ had the energy to become a potential live staple and the guy in the crowd who screamed “That was the best song ever!” seemed to think so too.
The wholesomeness between the band was palpable. Positioned with microphones either side of the stage, Parsons cheekily said at one point that he “couldn’t wait til the show was over” so he could finally give Blair a hug.
As the show concluded and the band finally left the stage, the response was so electric that they returned for an encore. “We don’t usually do encores”, they said as they re-entered and it was refreshing for a band to return to the stage for an encore that was entirely unplanned. A very Good Morning thing to do.
Highlight: Parsons gleefully yelling, “This is the biggest show we have ever played!”
Lowlight: The at-times too-long pauses between songs.
Crowd favourite: The singalong for ‘Warned You’ was anthemic.
Check out Good Morning’s new album Basketball Breakups when it hits the shelves Friday October 4.
