Live review, photos - Sunny Day Real Estate, Melbourne 2010

Sunny Day Real Estate
The Palace, Melbourne
Thursday 25th February 2010

Here's the story. Band takes cues from their local smouldering grunge scene and injects soaring emotion into their off-kilter guitar music, ratcheting down the angst and loathing. Band releases debut album (in 1994, the same year Kurt Cobain kills himself) gets popular-ish, breaks up a year later whilst recording their second album. Label releases it anyway. (A musicians band, these two albums go on to become templates for emo(tional) music, in a time pre-eyeliner high-jacking.) Bassist and drummer get asked by Dave Grohl to join his new band, Foo Fighters. A year or so later, drummer leaves Foos to play again with a cautiously optimistic reuniting singer and guitarist. The trio recruit new bass player and record a third album. A darker, more mellow affair based on the singers solo recordings. They stay together long enough to record a fourth before splitting for the second time in 2000 when their label folds.

Fast forward to 2009. The Foo Fighters are on an extended break, leaving bassist and original Sunny Day member Nate Mendel with time on his hands. He encourages the rest of the original quartet - singer Jeremy Enigk, guitarist Dan Hoerner and drummer William Goldsmith - to get together again. To great surprise and with much internet buzz, they do. The band tours in the US in late 2009, and for the first time ever, comes to Australia in early 2010 as part of the Soundwave festival. Not as a nostalgia act (despite being a revered, prime inspiration for many of the other bands on the bill), but as a revived force in their own right.

The band were originally billed as headliners tonight. Somewhere along the way, as so happens with large festivals satellite shows, that spot was subsumed by Jimmy Eat World, relegating Sunny Day to main support. I'm here for Sunny Day. It's hard to tell if many others are. The Palace is mostly full, and there's a definite clutch of 'singing-along' fanboys pressed up the front of the stage. But as the 'visually unremarkable' band amble on stage, there's not the roar of recognition that associated with most bands who've just reunited after a long abcense. More of a welcoming chatter. As they punch into their debut opener 'Seven', a few things are immediately apparent:

Jeremy Enigk really does have one of the most amazing, unique voices in rock. Equally soaring and gentle as it is husky and powerful; so much so that a few times I'm sure there's someone else singing backup when clearly there's not. He sounds like two people.

Guitarist Dan Hoener looks like he is having the absolute time of his life. Eyes-shut, constant grinning, body-flailing.

It's weird to see Nate Mendel play in not-an-arena. Being a Foo and all.

Sunny Day's sound has dated some. It's true. But in retrospect, much of their sound would've been considered current only long after they broke up. Perhaps tonight it has more to do with their chosen material. In a 45 minute set the band stick steadfastly to tracks from their first two albums. Which makes sense as they're the two that Mendel played on. But I'm of the unfashionable opinion that the group's third album How It Feels To Be Something On is their high-watermark, so it's disappointing to not hear anything from that record.