Children Collide - Ding Dong Lounge

A Guitarist / Vocalist, two drummers, a Tambourine / Trumpet player and a Tambourine player, initially ‘Bang Bang Aids’ line up seems extraneous, the drummers are just playing in unison and one of the Tambourine players doesn’t actually seem to do anything. As the band progress through their set the songs start to take on a looser feel, the drummers counteracting each other, even the tambourine player’s incessant chip eating and the band’s banter adds an element of charm to the jagged and (I suspect) partly improvised noise. The band don’t care the venue is half full and those fortunate enough to be present love them for it. Following in Melbourne’s tradition of varied line-ups, ‘Young Lovers’ are a slick but ultimately uninspiring rock band combining a lot of generic fashionable rock tricks such as disco beats, synths and new wave style guitar and after several similar sounding songs I lose interest. After a lengthy stage set up filled by Streetparty DJ’s, ‘Children Collide’ take to the stage resplendent in a sea of cacophony. Following in the footsteps of many classic Three-pieces the band create a tremendous amount of noise for their number, thrashing and crashing their way through a sucession of crowd favourites and into a series of well received new songs, the audience reaction surprising and delighting the band. ‘Children Collide’ are a delight and a thrill to watch, bass player Heath bounds around the stage pounding thumping licks and riffs, Johnny’s guitar awash in waves of reverb and distortion, screeching and howling into the microphone, sometimes (and I suspect a trick he learnt recently) combining the two by screaming into his guitar pick up. As the set reaches it’s all too soon and unwelcomingly premature end, Johnny announces ‘Encores are stupid, so we’re just going to play the songs now√Æ and crash into their sets conclusion even achieving the unattainable, a dancing Melbourne Audience.

Published in InPress