Cloud Control - Live At Electric Ballroom, London

Not full to capacity, but a good crowd nonetheless are gathered here tonight at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. Headlining tonight’s proceedings are Australia’s psych pop finest, Cloud Control. They take to the stage full of bounce but somehow lack vim; it feels like they are going through the motions, bouncing because they are meant to and not because they want to.

It’s an early start for Cloud Control, hit the stage shortly before 9pm and the crowd spill out onto the street before the clock strikes ten. Lead singer Alister Wright apologises for this fact, guessing that a lot of the audience have only just made it out of bed.

There has been some re-arranging of their older songs, such as ‘Death Cloud’ which has now lost it’s ironically fun, jauntiness and been re-worked into a much harder, rockier yet lackluster incarnation of itself. We are left wondering what has happened and where this band is going? Then Alister announces they won’t be gigging for a while as they are going away to write a new album.

Maybe with this thought something is triggered as from here on the set does start to pick up. The crowd’s becoming more responsive and the band themselves seem to be finding their groove and it’s flowing nicely into a ‘60s style with ‘Gold Canary’, its psychedelic leanings and primal pulsating rhythms finally getting people moving and arms elevated in the air. Heidi Lenffer is at home behind her keyboard, channeling hipster cool and wielding a mean tambourine. While Jeremy Kelshaw gets a little over enthused with his spinning top impression and smacks the neck of his guitar into his mic stand, yet he remains unperturbed and keeps right on spinning.

The best thing about this band is their beautiful three-part harmonies, Heidi’s earthy, velvety voice underpinning the charmingly delicate sound of Alister’s vocal, whilst bassist Jeremy’s guttural echoings tie the whole thing together. This is demonstrated perfectly in ‘Nothing In The Water’, which is executed perfectly and is a brilliant close to the night. It might have been a night of two halves but we got there in the end and are very excited to see what the future holds for this band.

Words by Vanessa Higgins
Photo by Rachel Lipsitz

Click here for a photo gallery of the gig.