REVIEW: THE TEMPER TRAP | THE FORUM | MELBOURNE

Written by: Jack Kennedy

Opening the night at The Forum was Melbourne’s only Indigenous dancing group, Dijirri Dijirri. Djirri Djirri means Willy Wagtail in Woiwurrung, the language of Wurundjeri people, the Traditional Custodians of Narrm (Melbourne) and surrounds. Performing six different dance routines, they danced to their leader who was singing 100% in Woirwurrung and was also accompanied by a didgeridoo player.

The Temper Trap kept their fans on edge as they appeared on stage fifteen minutes late, with Dougie gracefully greeting the crowd. There was none of this walking out to sampled, instrumental music that we see so often these days. It was just The Temper Trap, picking you their instruments and talking some shit to the crowd - maybe the way more gigs should be.

To no further or due, they burst into the bopping organ chords from ‘Love Lost’. It was evident from this moment that they were going to play their decade old ‘Conditions’ in full. The crowd gave a massive cheer when they heard the intro to ‘Love Lost’ and sang along with Dougie to the first line “a love was lost, and now we found it”.
They followed on into ‘Rest’, with the one thing on everyone’s minds throughout the song - will they play Sweet Disposition next or leave it until the end of their set?

After ‘Rest’ came to a close they held a soft synth note and invited ex member Lorenzo Sillito up on stage.
Lorenzo launched into the opening riff for Sweet Disposition and the crowd went wild. Playing an extended version of the track, Dougie’s falsetto swept the Forum crowd off their feet. Once again, the crowd was very involved in singing every word back to the band.

We then heard an emotional introduction to ‘Down River’, with bassist Jonny telling us that he wrote this song for his sister. Jonny put down his bass for this song while he played acoustic guitar and sang lead vocals.

Midway through their set we heard songs such as ‘Soldier On’, ‘Fools’ and ‘Resurrection’. The band explained that according to their producer who recorded their debut, the song ‘Soldier On’ was the track that most caught his attention when he was listening to their demo’s and that it was his wife who talked him in to agreeing to record them.

They closed their set with ‘Science of Fear’ before playing a 10-minute rendition of ‘Drum Song’ as their last.

The Temper Trap appeared for about a 30-minute encore, which instead of playing some of their more recent material – they decided to take us back to their pre ‘Conditions’ catalogue. We heard songs such as ‘Little Boy’, along with some tracks off their EP and some unreleased tracks. They finished their night off with playing the upbeat track ‘Hearts’ which was included on the ‘Conditions’ deluxe album.

For a band that has been gigging far beyond the past decade, thankfully they showed no signs of finishing up.