Iva Davies, Art Vs Science play Icehouse, Trak Lounge, 14th September 2011

Gallery: Art Vs. Science play Icehouse

Icehouse are having some sort of revival at present, with their Greatest Hits album White Heat currently sitting pretty inside the ARIA top 10 album chart.

Jack Daniels decided that, for their 2011 JD Set promotion they’d ask Sydney based electronic trio Art Vs Science to reinterpret a few Icehouse songs. On paper it appeared a little leftfield. In practice, it was quite bizarre.

Amid more smoke than a Bob Marley recording studio, the 3 lads from Art Vs Science took to the stage, and opened with one of Iva Davies’ biggest tunes – Great Southern Land. What struck immediately is that there wasn’t a huge amount of reinterpretation going on here, and that would prove indicative of the remainder of the evening. The songs tonight could have been performed by any cover band really, with a few guest vocalists thrown into the mix. There wasn’t any of Art Vs Science’s trademark sound injected into proceedings.

Dan McNamee showed glimpses when unleashed on the guitar of what makes their own live shows so dynamic, but even once joined on stage by guest vocalists – Tim Derricourt  of Dappled Cities, Kate Miller-Heidke, and The Grates‘ Patience Hodgson, the set struggled to find a spark.

The crowd – made up predominantly, one would assume, of invited guests and not a great deal of ticket buying punters, were a mixed spread of ages. They also never really got out of second gear. There was constant chatter throughout the set and plenty of gaps up the front of the standing area.

(more…)