There's something ridiculously likable about Brisbane pop-rockers
Yves Klein Blue. Whether they are performing to thousands at a big-name
festival, or to hundreds in clubs and venues around Australia, the band's
charm and loose-cannon energy is always worth revisiting.

Though a set
riddled with technical problems, the band gave a loose, enjoyable performance
to Towradgi's Waves nightclub as a part of their About The Future tour.
The boppy rockers headed an impressive triple bill of some of
Australia's finest young talent who might only have a handful
of releases between them, yet collectively threaten to grow into something
significantly bigger over the next year.

Up first were
fellow Brisvegans The Last Dinosaurs. Though it would be easy to discard
them as the next Triple J darlings who weigh about 90kgs collectively
and listened to Whatever People Say I Am too many times, there's
thankfully a lot more to them than this. The band swaggered through a
short, punchy set of catchy, danceable post-punk with rousing energy and
an incredibly likable persona about it all.

Showcasing from their Back
From The Dead EP as well as a handful of brand new tunes, highlights of
their set included the jolting, angular fun of "As Far As You're
Concerned" and the slow-burning trance of "Saturn". Their finest moment,
however, came in the form of the ridiculously catchy "Honolulu". It
might be a cliche to consider the band's lead single/best-known song as
their finest, but as it stands nothing hits as hard or stays with you as
long as this four-minute pop wonderland. Its dynamics and seemingly
countless hooks saw the first major shift in energy for the evening,
which would continue on for the rest of the night. A great warm-up act,
Last Dinosaurs will hopefully be able to bring even more boisterous
excitability to their headlining tour in May.

Following on were
Blue Mountains pop stalwarts Cloud Control. Having previously toured in
Wollongong with Adelaide's Leader Cheetah, the band were playing to a
significantly different audience this particular evening. Nevertheless,
it didn't stop them from putting on an enthusiastic performance for
those in attendance, most of which were now getting into the show
as much as the band themselves.

With a debut album on the way, entitled
Bliss Release, the band's performance consisted of mostly new material,
being roadtested before their own national tour in May (yep, both
support acts are touring next month). Sure, it can be a little hard to
get into stuff you've never heard before, but Cloud Control got about it
just fine. If anything, the more electric numbers enticed us to want to
hear the album even more. Frontman Alister Wright has significantly
developed his vocal style in said new songs; his harmonies and
call-and-response with keyboardist Heidi Lenffer sounds sweeter than
ever. From an instrumental perspective, too, the band are tight and all
appear to be really enjoying themselves throughout. Recent high-rotation
favourite "Gold Canary" scores the biggest cheer of their set, but
perhaps it's "Death Cloud" from the band's first EP that's the highlight
of the set. Everything from the twangy bassline to the practically
irresistible five-word chorus defines what made so many of us fall in
love with the band in the first place. Tonight was simply a continuation
of said love affair.

Ragged and Ecstatic is not
only a great album title, it also perfectly describes the Yves Klein
Blue live show. The former comes in the band's rough-and-tumble stage
presence; the latter for the fact they never appear as if they'd rather
be doing anything else. Tonight's performance was no exception.

Michael
Tomlinson - on lead vocals, guitar and occasional keyboards - was
bouncing around within minutes of the four piece taking to the stage,
inviting the small but devoted crowd up front to do the same. And that
we did. Whether it was a funked-out, impassioned take on Lou Reed's
classic "Walk on the Wild Side" or the new single that validated the
tour's existence, "About the Future"; and whether it was bassist Sean
Cook snapping a string or one of their guitars was conking out
entirely... no matter what song or what fate held for its oft-flawed
completion, both the performers and the audience were connected in their
enthusiasm and perseverance. I

t was definitely getting to Tomlinson at
various stages of the evening - in these instances, his boyish charm
seen in songs like the swinging "Make Up Your Mind" turned to rabid-dog
eyes and borderline-screams of the vocals (fan favourite "Polka" a prime
example), as his frustration with the admittedly-dodgy mix and live
setup seeped in. Thankfully, it never got in the way of the set to a
point of predominance, and the boys in Blue stayed cool.

Unsurprisingly, the band finished with a singalong rendition of "Getting
Wise". Sure, we all had one last bounce to the splashing Chris Banham
beat - a couple of kids even tried crowdsurfing. Still, this was, in
part, the most niggling things about the band's set - if you'd seen
them more than once, you more or less knew exactly what was coming. It's
not a fault of the band themselves, but it's becoming increasingly
evident that some new material is needed. We all know one album and an
EP or two can only tide a band over for so long without the group
becoming overly familiar. A fun night, with no bad performances, but
perhaps YKB should focus on some new material while the dinosaurs roam
and the clouds do some controlling.