In a flurry of shows that included stints at Splendour in the Grass and Fuji Rock in Japan, LA sisters HAIM managed to find the time in between flights to treat Melbournians to a show. Less a show and more of a complete and hypnotic aural seduction.
The Hifi Bar in Melbourne was the budoir, filled with a surprisingly varied array of callers from the female and gay twentysomethings to, unexpectly, middle-aged men and women. It might have been the most accurate and representative population sample seen at a gig. Already charmed by the tease of their Forever EP, many Australians came to be pleasured by the full, unadulterated HAIM experience.
The stage was set with the 70s sounds of Sydney rock and roll outfit The Preatures, bringing a set that felt uncannily like a Fleetwood Mac tribute, not that anyone was complaining. Their smooth, opaque 70s grooves made for incredibly good foreplay, a la Barry White. Frontwoman Isabella Manfredi openly acknowledged Fleetwood connection, performing her song ‘Threat’ in Fleetwood Mac style. Manfredi’s haunting, whispering vocals floated over the dense soulscape. It could easily have been the Mac’s forgotten, golden B-Side. It was a bizarrely sweet set, leaving the audience feeling trapped in the oddest time warp. I was dying to hear a rendition of ‘Rhiannon’, just purely out of curiosity, but fortunately they didn’t succumb. I concede that would have been a cop out.
After a set of wafting harmonies, sweet melodies, and crunching guitar rock, the atmosphere was well and truly established for the girls. Este, Danielle and Alana (affectionately known as ‘Baby Haim’ to fans) took to the stage to deliver their soulful brand of 80s inspired synthpop, or at least, that’s what we’d come to expect. Instead, the girls threw foreplay by the wayside and bombarded the audience with a rhythmic, minimalistic, hard rock jam, with meandering guitar licks and tough punctuating bass. For three skinny, unassuming ladies, they broke us with a thrust of pure, unrefined, rough-riding Americana. They play hard, fast, loud and great. I wasn’t aware these girls could legitimately rock. I have since been educated, stewing in the afterglow of a bewildering soundgasm. With metre-long locks, grown purely for headbanging, what was expected to be a standard expected indie-pop affair becoming a celebration of organic rock.
These girls exude charisma with every impassioned drum stroke. With every strum, with every vocal effort they are thoroughly engaged, each moment beating against the musical pleasure centre of the audience. The crowd were drenched in their energy and hungry for more. After the first go around, the vibe slowed for a little pillow talk, with Este, the eldest Haim and designated MC, sharing an unpretentiously adorable story of her excitement at finally being in Australia. As a three year-old, the blonde bassist told her mother that, in an act of youthful retaliation, she’d one day move to Australia. She then proceeded to introduce her mother, who’d been hiding backstage, to the audience to rapturous laughter and applause. There’s nothing Australians love more than genuine gals, and mums, and HAIM were in high supply of both. We had fallen blindingly, stupidly, intoxicatingly in love.
From here came the slew of singles, kicking off with ‘Go Slow’, ‘Falling’, ‘Send Me Down’ then ‘Forever’, the familiar material, the main event, the good stuff, each track almost unrecognisable from its studio-recorded incarnation. Each had injected a large dose of grit, guitar and soul, to the audience’s continued immense pleasure. The girls followed through with incredible rhythm, building the intensity to what accumulated in an explosion of sound. After hitting us with the dazzle of ‘Forever’ at the near climax, the girls stopped abruptly, leaving the stage. That couldn’t be it. The crowd, desperate for the finish, pleaded for an encore. Obligingly, the girls returned to the stage to finish what they had started with a tribal, almost Asian-style percussion piece, beating through the audience’s collective chest and reducing them to quivering, bedazzled jelly.
If you want to catch HAIM live, beware. You may find yourself succumbing to the sweetest aural seduction and a sound experience you’ll be feeling long after the show is over.
-Nat Tencic for Cool Accidents
