Live Review: Richard In Your Mind, Raindrop, Alyx Dennison

Alyx Dennison, who has recently supported Lamb on their Sydney and Melbourne shows, superbly layered her beautiful sounds for the audience who looked on with awe tonight.

Those high notes were oh-so softly displayed in LAX. And them low notes, almost mere vibrations, in I Don’t Love You Anymore, which set the scene for the dramatic drum solo finish, had the crowd feeling delicately haunted.

The quartet from Sydney, Raindrop, entertained onlookers aesthetically with their psychotropic sounds, their paisley shirts, their 1960s-motivated, groovy-egg lighting and the smell of incense. Their look and sound had a ‘let’s drop acid in the park’  kind of feel as they had the crowd swaying vigorously with their tune It Goes Off.

Ultimately, though, it was mostly about the Richards. Richard In Your Mind started their gig with the trippy track, Love Grows, which is also the first track on their latest album, Ponderosa. Throughout the song an eight-legged costumed character danced with, ran through and menaced the adoring crowd as the band cunningly kicked off their Space Octopus tour.

My Volcano, which, confusingly, is the name of their 2010 album as well as the title of a song on 2014’s Ponderosa, erupted with its strong instrumental. This, however, was just an ice-breaker for the real crowd pleasers, Hammered, which had everyone boogying and singing along, Shooting Star, the psychedelic affront to the senses, and Maybe When The Sun Comes Down an old oscillating favourite. This five-piece from Sydney, who’ve been on the scene for quite some time, reignited the crowd’s love for the all that is dreamy psycho-pop.