The Kills + Louis XIV @ The Zoo

A seemingly rare night of festival sideshow action in Brisbane…

Louis XIV start much later than advertised, possibly because The Zoo was rather empty at the time they were supposed to start, although it gradually fills up in the interim.   Having seen them the last time they played at The Zoo in 2006, they don’t really offer anything new; the sound hasn’t progressed past the Mud/Sweet 70’s glam mixed up with Rocky Horror Picture Show-style camp show tunes and most of the best songs come from the Pitchfork-rated debut album they were promoting last time around.  It’s pretty limp and it’s another one of those shows where you feel that the band is going through the motions and there’s little sense of any real passion or enjoyment.  Having played V Festival on the Gold Coast the day before, there seems to be a case of the day after the night before about their largely lethargic and insipid performance.  The experience isn’t helped by the particularly muddy sound and the absence of the lush vocal harmonies that are to the fore on the albums and which they are not able to replicate live.  The best song they play tonight, which comes from their Pitchfork-rated second album, sounds like Elton John… And I think I’ll just leave it at that…  

Everyone stakes their place at the front for The Kills within seconds of Louis XIV finishing. Not expecting such a surge I find myself nowhere near the front and so start photographing from a few rows back, although I eventually manage to navigate around to the very side of the stage and and up shooting right across the stage.  It’s a less than ideal situation, not helped by MCP, who, when confirming my pass, seem to be under the impression that The Zoo has a photo pit and so have stipulated a three song limit.  The light in the first three is very erratic and Alison Mosshart’s movement makes it hard get a clear shot and shooting from so far out to the side renders Jamie Hince largely invisible behind the stage/PA system. Depressingly, and typically, the lighting after the first three songs is really nice and would have made for some excellent photo, particularly when Mosshart and Hince move their microphones into the centre of the stage so that they’re facing each other as they play (like this). 

It’s often annoying and frustrating  photographing bands in Brisbane and then comparing them with photos taken in Sydney and Melbourne, where often they have the benefit of much better lighting and/or a photo pit, e.g. when The Kills moved onto Sydney they played at the Forum with a photo pit and what looks like a much better lighting set-up.  Having photographed in a few venues in Sydney and Melbourne it is something that I’ve experienced first-hand; it’s always amusing to go to a venue down there, have a local photographer tell you the lighting is terrible and then find out that it’s in fact better than just about every venue in Brisbane…

A few more photos on Flickr.

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