Kurt Vile & The Violators | Woodland | Brisbane | Photos

Kurt Vile & The Violators + Blank Realm + Kellie Lloyd @ Woodland, 08.12.2011

The afternoon doesn’t get off to the best of starts when the set times are tweeted: Kellie Lloyd at 9:15pm, Blank Realm at 10:15pm and Kurt Vile at 11:15pm. It brings a quick tweeted response of my darkened mood. It’s a Thursday night, I have work to go to tomorrow and I do not want to be at the gig where the main event doesn’t start until 11:15pm. Given that reports of his other Australian shows have him playing a two hour set, potentially I could still be out in the Valley seeing a band play at 1:15am, before needing to get back home and then get up and go to work a few hours later. The show is at Woodland so I really shouldn’t expect much, given their continuously ludicrous show times, which I keep writing about, like a stuck record.

Kellie Lloyd kicks the evening off with a solo song before being joined by Tape/Off for the rest of her set. Her solo songs are a lot grittier, noisier and have more edge than the much more poppy Screamfeeder songs of hers that I know. They remind me of something but I can’t keep put my finger on it. She starts her set slightly later than had been time that had been tweeted earlier in the day and technical issues in the second song push the end time further back.

By the time Blank Realm set-up and start, it’s 10:45pm, 30 minutes later than their advertised start time. They’re still one of my favourite Brisbane bands though and I’m really looking forwards to new recordings from them in 2012.

Kurt Vile starts at 11:45pm, again 30 minutes later than he was supposed to play and although part of me considers only staying for a few songs to get some photos, I end up staying for just over an hour and bailing at 12:45am. I stay because Smoke Ring For My Halo has been one of my favourite albums from the year and his live show is really enjoyable and sounds great. And yet I find it hard to completely relax and enjoy myself as I keep checking my watch.

I hear the next day that he played until 1:15am. It’s times like this that I become more and more convinced that the music scene in Brisbane exists solely for students, the unemployed and the people in the music industry who work these hours and don’t have any responsibilities. I decide that my first New Year’s resolution is to stop covering gigs at Woodland unless there’s something spectacular happening, maybe another MereNoise Meltdown or a Flavours Of Scuzz. It’s not just a work day thing, I don’t really even want to bother with weekend shows as they finish even later and previous experience has seen me seeing bands at 3am there. I don’t want to be hanging around until 3am to see a band. Judging by the small amount of people still there at these times compared to when the venue was at its most full, hours earlier, I know I’m not the only one. Having already put in to cover a couple of gigs in the New Year, at the moment I’ve got no further plans to get back to Woodland in a hurry. It’s just not fun and it’s making me hate going out to see live music.