Ocean Alley
Hordern Pavilion, February 18
★★★½
The timing couldn’t have been better.
With singing and dancing restrictions lifted on this very day, the Hordern was just about back to its old self for the first hometown show of rootsy Northern Beaches rockers Ocean Alley’s long-awaited, oft-postponed tour.
While the more careful present chose their seats and socially distanced themselves from each other at the sides and the back of the room, in front of the stage – for the first time I’ve seen to such a large extent in nearly two years – a packed crowd heaved, sang and cheered as one.
Ocean Alley frontman Baden Donegal.Credit:Tyler Bell
This all worked out especially well for the six-piece performing, who gleefully rode the resulting wave of cathartic joy along with these dedicated fans.
The latter are the people, after all, who keep sending some of the band’s perfectly pleasant but hardly earth-shattering tunes to the upper reaches of the Triple J Hottest 100 (most famously the easy-rock jam Confidence, which went all the way to the top of the 2018 poll).
Yet what Ocean Alley do live, on this night at least, makes more sense.
After two years, crowds are back.Credit:Tyler Bell
Sure, many of their songs only partly scratch an itch – they either seem to start strongly and then fail to live up to their promise (the beefy rock strut of Overgrown, the funky taste of Hot Chicken) or, more often, take a little too long to get going (The Comedown, Stained Glass and the incongruously titled Rage, among others).
All-singing, all-dancing fans rejoice
Source: Philippines Alive
