Concert Review: The Growlers – Powerstation, January 19, 2020

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The Growlers performed at Auckland’s Powerstation last night, with the six-piece giving the chill and groovy crowd a two-hour set filled with dreamy psychedelic surf and disco-infused funk-pop.

With no opening act, The Growlers were scheduled to take the stage just 45 minutes after doors opened at Powerstation at 8 p.m. Thankfully, they were delayed another fifteen minutes, which allowed the initial smattering of front-row fans to grow into a pleasantly packed floor space.

Opening with the distorted, filtered vocals of Someday, the band immediately set the tone for much of their set; harmonic and contrasting backing vocals, slow and deliberate guitar riffs and solos, and a delightfully strange hybrid of funk, surf rock, psychedelic rock, and synth-laced disco-pop. All of this tied together by lead singer, Brooks Nielsen, whose voice carries a tone which is both charmingly unique and familiar at the same time.

Blending a little bit of The Animals, The Kinks, The Strokes and moments of Bob Dylan-like vocals, the musical styles shouldn’t work as well as they do together, but The Growlers have a beautifully relaxed stage presence which seems to amplify the earnest tone of their music – while it borders on a manufactured, templated style, there was a consistency throughout the set which felt irresistible in making you want to just groove along.

The band have no issue weaving through these genres at will, from the sweetheart-country-pop Heaven in Hell and One Million Lovers to the pop-rock Strokes-inspired Problems III and the fast-paced psychedelic surf-rock Dope on a Rope. Nielsen’s voice has settled into its own, new style which is part-Julian Casablancas and part Dylan-meets-Kasabian, and I imagine anyone not in love with his sedated physical performance and matching vocal style may find the lack of variation exhausting.

Fortunately, numbers like Night Ride, Try Hard Fool, and Feeling Good – filled with slow, country-style guitar and precise, measured lyrics and drums – brought some balance to this style, showcasing the group’s ability to build on these slower tempos into an anthemic closing beat, almost veering into swamp-funk and psychobilly like a grimy version of The Cramps.

Lyrically, The Growlers are consistently fantastic, with Black Memories, When You Were Made, Tune Out and Social Man displaying how well the band work together in contrasting soothing, gentle backing vocals with increasing vocal intensity across the full range of various genres included in their set.

Sea Lion Goth Blues took the set in a slightly dirtier country direction, with a slow, booming drum beat leading into Pavement and the Boot, which took notes from early Queens of The Stone Age with a wild drum closer and transition into the restrained, slower guitar of Decoy Face and Who Loves the Scum?

Closing out with Vacant Lot, City Club and Chinese Fountain, the pre-encore set jumped between heavy synths and a slow build into pulsing rock-pop, and funk-disco in the finale’s long, drawn-out solo. An encore of I’ll Be Around and Going Gets Tough were well-received, though the penultimate I’ll Be Around was the standout; a groovy, grimy swamp-funk number with spooky synths and overlapping vocals that hinted at The Doors and The Heavy.

Despite a slight sense of melancholy in their sedated performance, there’s again something endearingly charming about the band as a whole. They’re consistent in making you want to slow groove, and offer enough variation on the successful template of their numbers that it never feels completely formulaic. While you won’t find the same consistency in sound across their recorded work, their most recent live performance shows a band perfectly capable of pooling this collective growth into a highly enjoyable two-hour set.

~Oxford Lamoureaux

Click any image to view a gallery by Todd Buchanan

The Growlers Setlist

Someday
California
Heaven in Hell
One Million Lovers
Problems III
Dope on a Rope
Night Ride
Try Hard Fool
Black Memories
Love Test
The Daisy Chain
When You Were Made
Humdrum Blues
Tune Out
Feeling Good
Natural Affair
Social Man
Beach Rats
Empty Bones
Nose Bleed
Sea Lion Goth Blues
Pavement and the Boot
Decoy Face
Who Loves the Scum?
Vacant Lot
City Club
Chinese Fountain

Encore
 
I’ll Be Around
Tuff (Going Gets Tough)

Oxford Lamoureaux
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