Gersey / Treetops / Nada Surf

Andy J Ryan Jul 30, 2023

Thursday night saw me hangin round the city after work for a gig at the metro where they gave away more free tickets than a Sydney Roosters season, got there rather early and somehow found some space in the crowd, which at that point was threatening to trickle not double figures, to catch Melbourne pop upstarts the Treetops. Now this band are kinda funny looking on stage at the best of times but a bizarre trouser choice by the guitarist who was sporting a ‘tom hanks in castaway’-esque pair of rolled up to mid calf tracksuit pants surely added to their curious look, add to the mix a rather loud pirate-esque looking fan in the front row and shiver me timbers it seemed like mutiny at the metro. The band went thru their dreamy sounding pop with a goodly dose of humour and a bit of haphazzardness, plus the requisite sound problems but were innocently catchy enough to nurse the fans thru their early evening beers quite nicely (***).

After a quite short Treetops set it was up for Gersey to step up, the crowd had filled up a bit to be approaching the ‘dozens’ level and they were all rather polite in their appreciation of the band, who had made that extra special effort of all wearing matching fetching black shirts. Maybe it was the shirts that bought them closer, united together, us against the world sorta thing, but it sure was tight rockin old set from the lads , best I'’ve ever seen ‘em anyways, good stuff ****.

Nada Surf, now it was a somewhat unknown quantity, I'’ve heard a few songs and had a few listens to their latest album and have had my many friends enthusiasm for them rub off on me to the point where I was actually quite looking forward to seeing them. Ahh the almost forgotten art of the three piece, there's something quite humble and honest about the good old guitar bass drums combo, and it also takes a special kinda frontperson and solid songs to rise above the average. Any associations with mediocrity for ‘da surf had were soon forgotten as that rouge-ish scruffy haired singer let out the sweetest dang voice I've heard since I last misdialed that 1800 number... and when it was time for the bass player to have a sing my god, this band should have ‘home, contents and throat insurance’. The band were also joined on stage by the most robotic looking woman I've ever seen to play keyboard, filling out their already impressive sounds. They played a goodly chunk of their latest album and even played their old skeleton in the closet token brief fling with the vexing mistress of the pop charts song; ‘popular ‘, sarcastically of course, and after three encores left the small but privileged crowd of the metro to swan about smiling and buzzing, damn fine indeed (****1/2).