A touch of Grate-ness
Mon 02 October 2006
Nathan Price, Journalism
People can’t seem to get enough of The Grates’ mix of pop rock and fun.
Sydney has a great collection of clubs and theatres for live music.
Old places that appear as a door along the footpath, open to reveal dusty stages and beaten carpet. Gold embossed handrails lead upstairs where you can smell the history and gaze down upon the shimmering mass of the dance floor.
It was at one of these very venues, the Gaelic Theatre, that I had the pleasure of seeing The Grates continue their path towards rock stardom. Since they released their first full-length album, Gravity Won’t Get You High, the band’s original style and infectious enthusiasm has been winning fans across the country.
Sell-out concerts, headlining at festivals and considerable album sales have all contributed to the hype surrounding this Brisbane three-piece.
It was a cold, spring night for those queuing up outside the venue. The line snaked a few hundred metres up the street before the doors were thrown open and heads began to disappear inside.
The Grates are most easily defined as indie rock. The indie rock stereotype might have been hijacked by the angst-riddled teen but The Grates’ music is anything but morbid. The lead singer, Patience, exudes an energy on stage that is hypnotic to the crowd. As she dances, twirls and flings herself across stage the audience follows like they are under instruction.
In an interview with Access All Areas, Patience describes the band’s sound as, “more girly and less genre defying… with a pop trashiness”.
The best part of their story though is how they came into existence. John, Alana and Patience were university flatmates in Brisbane who shared a house but no real musical ambition. They wanted to be rock stars but were very ordinary musicians. Far from toiling for years on the musical backwater, they formed on a whim and a dare. They then sent a demo to Triple J’s Unearthed program, which aims to promote new talent on the youth radio station.
Two very short years and a truckload of success later, they are back in Sydney as part of their second national tour for that first album. Only having one album under their belt meant that the song list at the gig was predictable but it didn’t hamper anyone’s enthusiasm.
Female lead singers are rare in the rock scene, which certainly helps The Grates’ original sound. The female vocals give the music a very fun, quirky and somewhat off beat nature. Their range is impressive too, from the slow melody of Sukkafish through to the fast and crazy Inside Outside.
They might have famously started their career as terrible musicians, but The Grates’ show was a very tight performance. They exuded a confidence that belies their short career and left the audience satisfied, exhausted and quite jealous of the stamina Patience showed on stage.
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