Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

The Forum

25 March

After having a couple of years of virtually no live music in Australia’s rock roll capital, Melbourne, we are now faced with slew of rescheduled shows from 2020/21. Tonight’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever headline performance at the iconic Forum, finally allows punters the chance to hear the ‘new’ (2020) album, Sideways to New Italy, (Ivy league Records/Sub Pop) in a sweaty, full capacity, stand-up room. It seems like a lifetime ago now that this album was released, but the somewhat strange-in-a-good-way situation, is that RBCF are now playing songs from their new, new, forth coming release, Endless Rooms, scheduled to drop May 2022, at the release of Sideways To New Italy – Really, a win-win for everyone involved.

Pinch Points and Elizabeth, ably warmed up the eager crowd in the beautiful surroundings of Roman columns, Florentine walled garden architecture, all under the cerulean-blue ceiling/twilight sky, which strangely, sets the scene for many a rock show.

RBCF promptly took to the stage jumping straight into Bellarine (Hope Downs) followed by The Second of the First, Beautiful Steven and She’s There, all off STNI.

Punters were already dancing and singly loudly by the time An Air Conditioned Man (Hope Downs)  was presented which inevitably swept the entire room up into a large RBCF sing-along.

It was no mean feat to play STNI in its entirety, with the exception of Not Tonight  which was a scratching, coupled alongside a few tracks (The Way It Seems and Tidal River) from the fourth-coming album.

Great to see and hear local sun-splashed indie, jangly, guitar pop at its best. We look forward to the next national headline tour.

Words and Images: Lucas Packett