Gig Reviews

Bored Nothing @ The Gasometer

August 19, 2012 by Ryan Lloyd in Gig Reviews, Latest News with 0 Comments

Hype/buzz, wunderkind blah blah.. a Vulture makes no apology for presuming the complicity of its readers in feeling the NextBigThing-fatigue that arises from our near-daily bombardment by new musical worthies.

You try to keep your head up, maintain your interest, and preserve yourself from apathy, but once in a while we all experience it: someone exhorts you, ‘Man listen to this, you’ll love it, it’s this 13 year old kid from Montreal, he…loop pedal, and runs it through…raised on a far…apoco..th…’ – and you stop listening halfway through their pitch.

So we’ll spare you the ‘BUT THIS TIME IT’S THE REAL DEAL’ bit, and simply give you the heads up on a relatively new band, with a journo-friendly back-story and well-crafted tunes, and leave the rest up to fate and your inclination.

Melbourne’s Bored Nothing are pretty sweet. They made their live debut at the Gasometer on Friday, as part of an All I Do Is Listen musical showcase, but the music has existed for considerably longer as the bedroom project of Fergus Miller.

Three EPs in – all content recorded instrument-by-instrument by Miller to a cheap and natty four-track – the three additional members that comprise the live act became a necessity as Bored Nothing started to accrue airplay on Triple J, and booking offers started coming in.

We think this track’s fucking alright:

So now you get why ‘Bored Nothing’, right? The name as much as the music calls to mind distinct 90s vibes: Guided by Voices, lofigrungewashedoutgarage/etc., Elliot Smith – especially that last one, often in vocal style but consistently and more fundamentally through the dab craftsmanship of the songs.

In fact, Miller’s choice of title fits so snug that it would seem trite – like the whole project were no more than a calculated mastery of an aesthetic – but for the fact that these are undeniably good songs. It takes artistic maturity to show restraint in songwriting, and the well balanced arrangements here allow the music to be dynamic without feeling cluttered.

A very decent crowd – for a live debut – showed up to the Gasometer, and what they saw and heard there was wholly within the realm of what could be expected. Bored Nothing play material written entirely by Miller. They nailed that material, but the performance sounded meticulously rehearsed. Not dead, cold and lifeless, but rehearsed. No doubt inevitable. If the project is to transition completely from bedroom project to live act, there needs to be a certain degree of spontaneity introduced, even if it’s no more than a matter of guiding the audience into believing it’s there.