At Laneway festival, Hockey’s pop goodness put a spring in my step that followed me all the way to their sideshow at the HiFi! From Portland, Oregon come this quartet and their dance infused, optimistic pop songs made to get your groove on!

Opening with ‘Work’, frontman Benjamin Grubin lumbered haphazardly around the stage, swinging his arms around with a cheeky smirk on his face. The slowly pace track had Grubin crooning, little by little warming up the crowd, before launching into ‘Learn to Lose’, where Grubin showed the crowd that soulful side in his voice as touring fifth member Ryan Dolliner, looking quite the dapped gentleman, threw out quirky gospel-like keyboard melodies. Nearing the end of the song, Grubin stood back next to his drummer, the moustachioed Anthony Stassi, and manned an extra floor tom, adding to the thunder coming from the back of the stage. One highlight was ‘3am Spanish’, the petite frontman rapping while bassist Jeremy Reynolds acted as a metronome with a bouncy bassline. The band’s debut single, ‘Too Fake’ of course was greeted with great excitement, arousing the attention of those who recognised the song from one radio station or another. They closed their set with the “last song [they] know how to play!”, an energetic number called ‘Preacher’, with distorted guitar and a hectic pace, Dolliner bringing out the jumping Cabaret-esque keyboard melodies again.  On exiting the stage Grubin thanked the audience, commenting on his surprise that anyone had even found their way to see them.

This bands live performance was refreshing, the songs I heard at Laneway stuck with me enough to have me remember and even sing along to their show, a credit to this band song writing ability. In a world where things are taken too seriously too often, it’s enjoyable and invigorating to have bands like Hockey who play bright and cheerful pop music made for fun, no hang-ups or agendas.