Origin Blogger: The Temper Trap

The Temper Trap are back on Aussie soil after spending nearly 2 years away impressing UK and European audiences. Like all good mates returning home from a stint abroad, they’ve brought us back a little trinket – a shiny new self-titled album. In fact it’s so shiny and so well received that we’ve cleared a prime spot for it at the top of the ARIA Album chart.  They played two sold out shows for Vivid LIVE at Sydney Opera House, a venue well suited for their particular brand of Australian rock.

But before we get to that, a quick shout out to their opening act Chet Faker and his crew who played their sweet 16^th gig tonight and made me smile with their slow-groove cover of Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’. I was not expecting that from my Sydney Opera House experience.

Onto the headliners. The Melbourne lads filed out to pulsating red strobe lights and wasted no time launching into ‘London Burning’, a loud punchy opener to get us started and serving to quickly fill the high ceilings of the chamber. From here onwards the set is well paced, incorporating the new material with older songs from the 2009 debut Conditions and showcasing lead singer Dougy Mandagi’s gifted voice. Stand out tracks include ‘Love Lost’ and the gentle ‘Miracle’, where his falsettos clearly rise above the noise and head out to the masses.

They ramp up again in intensity, until finally losing all abandon on the ‘Drum Song’, a ballistic  instrumental led by, predictably, their drummer Toby Dundas. The hall reverberating amidst the dizzy, high spinning light show that accompanied.

They returned to the stage to begin their encore, but not before bassist Jonathon Aherne takes a moment to snap a picture of the crowd for his mum. I guess when you’re busy making a number one album you don’t have time to read Sydney Opera House’s policy on photography during live shows. Just kidding.

The encore included a spotlighted Mandagi delivering a steady ‘Dreams’ and lovingly earnest ‘I’m Gonna Wait’ with its catchy 80’s style chorus, dripping with longing – may I humbly suggest it for your next school / uni / end of year break-up party.

Unsurprisingly the biggest cheers for the night were saved for their monstrous break through track Sweet Dispositions. As soon as those familiar guitar chords started up, the crowd were screaming and converged into a great swaying mass as Mandagi broke into the familiar chorus. A fine choice to close the show and farewell the Sydney fans.

Written by Grace Kirupa
(Origin Blogger)

Photo by Daniel Boud