There’s nothing worse than having to choose between two excellent bands that are playing your city on the same night. As a result of the Falls Festival, Adelaide gig-goers tonight were given the choice between the California-based Grouplove and Canadians, Crystal Castles. Considering I’d missed out on seeing them during their first trip out for Splendour 2011 and having interviewed the band twice, it seemed that all signs were pointing towards Grouplove at The Gov.

It was my first show back at the joint and there was already a sense of familiarity, in some weird way, I felt like I was back at school or home. An all-ages show tonight, the crowd filled out the venue nicely, even if a sizeable proportion of the people were parents hanging out in the beer garden. I noticed that there was no extra sound desk like there had been the last few shows I’d attended here – slightly worrying considering this place has been known for its dreadful sound, but I figured that the bands on tonight couldn’t get too hardcore so it wouldn’t be so bad.

The only support act came to us from Seattle, a six piece called The Head and The Heart. The band, rich in harmonies and indie-folk tendencies seemed to have a fair few people in the crowd who knew their songs which was nice to see, considering I didn’t know them from a bar of soap. The Head and The Heart is a band who sounds like a mix-up of Fleet Foxes, Iron and Wine, Death Cab For Cutie and even a bit of Arcade Fire.

Their lead singer (for the most part) Josiah Johnson seemed incredibly focused the entire way through his set and his vocals brought about some great moments in the set. I enjoy watching a band with an enthusiastic drummer who is given more to do than just provide pace, so Tyler Williams’ energetic work behind the rest of the band really shone through. Apart from a performance which invited Grouplove’s Christian Zucconi out for tambourine/backing vocal duties, the true highlight came in the band’s final song, “Rivers and Roads”. It was at this point that the crowd bore witness to the band’s secret weapon of sorts, in Charity Rose Thielen’s vocals, which until now, we’d only seen in a supporting role. Sounding like a rustic Sarah Blasko, the petite violinist let loose some rich and soulful notes that surprised and reached the majority of the crowd.

Note to the band, let this girl take lead more often!

After a quick stage reset, “Monster” by Kanye West struck up and Sean Gadd ran out, leading the rest of the band out from the green room energetically. “Don’t Say Oh Well” off the band’s eponymous EP started the set and from there it was like a non-stop sing along between the band and the crowd. Hannah Hooper looked and sounded every bit as gorgeous as she had when I interviewed her last year. Although she reminded me of Molly Ringwald, Hooper wasn’t afraid to let loose, as she spent as much time jumping around and head banging as she did behind the microphone.

Watching Zucconi perform was something else. In a ripped up shirt and with dazed-yet-focused expression on his face, the lead vocalist was like an indie-rock Kurt Cobain (minus the drug issues and Courtney, clearly). Throwing himself around the stage as his played the guitar, knocking mic stands over multiple times and drinking wine straight from the bottle, Zucconi was exactly how people had told me he was as a live performer. His vocal range, perhaps best expressed on “Itchin’ on a Photograph” and “Colours” was amazing to see live, as he didn’t pause or falter once during each performance.

The performance of “Slow”, as the last song before the encore, was one of the standouts of tonight’s show. Ryan Rabin’s solo drum effort, complete with lit up drumsticks, silenced the crowd as we watched the drummer on the stage by himself going nuts on a floor tom. A drummer of consistent and enthusiastic quality the entire night, Rabin’s performance here was awesome to watch.

The encore, consisting of “Tongue Tied” and “Colours”, took things up another level, with small mosh pits taking place while everyone yelled along happily with the band. Nobody cared that nobody could sing at the level of Zucconi and co (“Don’t take me tongue tied/Don’t wave no goodbye/Don’t leave me tongue tied/Don’t…!” comes to mind), by this stage, it was like a celebration of what was a great night of music. The band looked genuinely humbled by the response they received from the Adelaide crowd, repeating a few times during the night that they knew now why we were called ‘Radelaide’.

The culmination of “Colours” signalled the end of the show, but not before Andrew Wessen and Zucconi went for some epic rounds of crowd-surfing, causing girls and guys to frantically grab at them, for different (or perhaps the same?) reasons. You could see that the members of Grouplove are naturals at what they do and the energy and cohesion that existed between them all was a result of just being great mates. Whether it was the looks of affection between Hooper and Zucconi or the matching tattoos on each member of the band, it was easy to see that Grouplove were just having fun.