As the remnants of Canberra’s 100th birthday celebrations remain reason enough for the Nations Capital’s students to party it up once more, Birds of Tokyo arrived with a bang last night to carve their name in the calendar of everyone’s ‘must see’ list.

My scepticism of whether Birds could actually fill the University’s thousand-plus capacity venue on a ‘school night’ was quickly dismissed upon first glimpse of the overflowing main car park. It was jam-packed. With the rise in the whole 1-man-and-his-Mac music revolution, in my mind there’s always an underlying fear that real music and good ‘ole Rock n Roll is slowly dying out. It ‘s like a shirt that I recently bought states, “Rock’s not dead it’s just confused”. But I digress, because if last night is any indication of how we can gauge Canberra’s rock music scene, it’s doing better than ever.

Arriving late (even fashionably so) turned out to be the wrong idea as the line to get in stretched back out to the gymnasium – no joke. Waiting in line for half an hour didn’t really seem like a fun option, so as far as I was concerned, I had no choice but to make the acquaintance of a couch in the Zierholz lounge and smack a cider or three. 20 minutes and a few sneaky pints later, I found myself inside the venue asking fellow patrons as to what I’d missed of the first act of the night. Unfortunately, due to the line, Super Best Friends had come and gone, and I wasn’t the only one who didn’t see the local lads tear it up, like I have so many times before. The consensus seemed to be that they nailed it, so for the purpose of this review let’s say they did.

My entrance did however align with Regular John taking the stage. Now, I know it’s an obvious one, but geez, these guys were regular indeed. Describing themselves as a psychedelic rock band; I found myself praying for their set to end. Maybe there was something I was missing or didn’t ‘get’, but the 4-piece just didn’t seem to have the crowd (who were practically giving themselves to the Sydney natives). They played their set and got a few cheers, but as it dragged on more and more people found themselves outside talking about how keen they were for the headliner.

As Birds of Tokyo took the stage, the 5-piece rock band from Perth clearly spared no expense on the night’s production. Large LED screens provided a synced light show, adding to the performance and giving the crowd more than what they bargained for. I’ve heard of Birds of Tokyo plenty of times before, but last night I realized just how many of their songs I knew and actually liked. Right from their epic intro, it was on. They went through old hits like ‘Wild at Heart’ and ‘The Saddest Think I know’ and a clear crowd pleaser was ‘Plans’. Front man Ian Kenny engaged the crowd like a pro and seemed to be having a ball up there. As they jumped into the new stuff, he expressed the band’s gratitude for the overwhelming turnout and for their support over the years. The crowd was treated to a long set and the quintet never missed a beat. Each song was met with enthusiasm and the crowd erupted as the show closed with their hit Lanterns.

Birds of Tokyo have been playing together since their inception in 2004; and it shows. Their meticulous performance plus the outstanding turnout of the Canberra crowd (Over 18’s I should also mention!) proved that Rock is well and truly thriving in the Nation’s Capital and these types of shows will continue to do so.

Birds of Tokyo – get on it.

Photography by Chris Whitfield