Concert Review: The Temper Trap | Buzz Blog
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Friday, August 13, 2010

Music / Culture

Concert Review: The Temper Trap

Posted By on August 13, 2010, 8:22 AM

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Vegemite, Foster's Lager, Yellow Tail Merlot, Silver Chair ... don't add The Temper Trap to the list of awful Aussie exports.--- Wednesday's packed performance at The Depot made the fist-pumping collegiate crowd squeal with delight. A combination of the low-ball $5 cover and the hook-heavy rock reminiscent of Coldplay and U2 brought a large mid-week crowd. 

Led by frontman Dougy Mandagi, the band often sounds more like their influences than themselves, yet it works. It's worth noticing their apparent love of themselves was infectious: The bassist shuffled his feet with unrelenting glee while Mandagi's head rolled back in ecstasy during many of the tunes, as did many of their fans. Any constructive feedback comes and goes quickly because, at the end of the night, the Temper Trap did piece together a solid show, with rendering cuts from their first release Conditions with perfect precision, made more apparent by The Depot's immaculate sound system (which, for this night was cranked up louder than normal).
Mandagi crooning "Ooh baby/ ooh baby" over and over kicked things off with "Rest." His lyrics often seem scant on depth and written to create more opportunities for his falsetto-ed tenor shine. The band, working out some new tunes on the tour, played several including "Rabbit Hole" which has them slowing down to pop ballads. This was followed by the evening's highlight "Down River" although the crowd might have thought the single "Sweet Disposition" was the take-home keeper. The set ended with the catchy, simple "Drum Song" aided by the theatrics of Mandagi center-stage banging a bass snare topped with water, which sprayed off with each beat in Stomp-like fashion. To encore, they announced their support of non-profit Buzz Off, which help alleviate malaria's burdens worldwide, before launching into a new song. Lastly drum machine aided "Science of Fear" ended the night on an enthusiastic, dancy note. Fully satisfied with the sounds of Temper Trap, the crowd filtered out content with the 12 song 70-minute set.

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