{"id":49,"date":"2007-02-13T12:54:21","date_gmt":"2007-02-13T01:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/?p=49"},"modified":"2007-02-19T09:16:23","modified_gmt":"2007-02-18T22:16:23","slug":"fourplay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"FourPlay @ The Studio &#8211; Sydney Opera House : 08.02.2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/users.on.net\/~dmccann\/images\/violin1.jpg\" height=\"250\" width=\"166\" alt=\"Violin\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I went and saw fabulous Sydney string quartet <strong>FourPlay<\/strong> perform live last week on Thursday 8th February, at The Studio &#8211; Sydney Opera House.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday&#8217;s show focused on rock\/pop music and was the first of three shows at The Studio &#8211; Sydney Opera House, as part of their <strong>FourPlay &#8211; Three Ways<\/strong> performances. The following shows both on Friday focused on jazz\/blues music, and a late show focused on electronica\/hip-hop music. I was unable to get to the Friday performances.<\/p>\n<p>Their performance was a bit more raw, and not as polished as the previous\/first time I saw them, for their &#8216;Now To The Future&#8217; album launch at The Metro last year, but was still very enjoyable and full of wonderful music. They were probably under quite a bit of pressure at this gig, knowing it was being recorded live for a special digital release (being made available to those in attendance only), and they were also featuring many new compositions, possibly the debut performance of some. This was a seated audience gig too, which would probably have felt very different for them compared to their more often pub\/club gigs I think.<\/p>\n<p>I always get a very strong emotional reaction to their sounds\/music, it&#8217;s warmth for my soul. I&#8217;ve always loved the sound of strings they&#8217;re such beautifully expressive instruments. I really should go to a symphony performance one day.<\/p>\n<p>During their performance I remember hearing their own compositions: &#8216;Evolve Or Decay&#8217;, &#8216;You&#8217;ve Changed Your Tune&#8217;, &#8216;Trust&#8217;, and &#8216;Bollyrock&#8217; which are all featured on their excellent &#8216;Now To The Future&#8217; album.<\/p>\n<p>We were also treated to a number of new compositions, a couple of titles I remember: &#8216;Requiem For a Democracy&#8217;, and &#8216;Poker Face (Butter Girl or But A Girl)&#8217;. I also really enjoyed a quite experimental new composition which I didn&#8217;t catch the name of, that featured them playing over a effects pedal sampled live loop of what could only be described as viola &#8216;slap bass&#8217; and hit violin\/cello body percussions. It had a great contrast of abstract sounding parts and really lush melodic parts.<\/p>\n<p>Covers they performed that I remember: <strong>Radiohead<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;2+2=5&#8217;, <strong>Cocteau Twins<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Seekers Who Are Lovers&#8217;, <strong>The Strokes<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Reptilia&#8217;, and <strong>Rage Against The Machine<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Killing In The Name Of&#8217; which Shenzo had some awesome talk-box type effect on his viola for the &#8220;F**k you, I won&#8217;t do what you tell me&#8221; vocal part, and Lara&#8217;s Tom Morello EBow guitar solo part sounded spot on. <\/p>\n<p>They also performed a new cover, <strong>Midnight Oil<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Read About It&#8217; which was a little rough around the edges, but had some really awesome sounding sections. I still think <strong>INXS<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Johnson&#8217;s Aeroplane&#8217; would sound fantastic covered by them. They ended the performance with their fantastic version of <strong>Beastie Boys<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Sabotage&#8217; voted to be played by audience cheer.<\/p>\n<p>Considering this was a rock\/pop focused performance, I&#8217;m surprised they didn&#8217;t play their well known <strong>Metallica<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;Enter Sandman&#8217; cover. I would have liked to have heard their <strong>Depeche Mode<\/strong> &#8211; &#8216;The Sweetest Perfection&#8217; and <strong>Jeff Buckley<\/strong> -&#8216;Grace&#8217; covers too, but it was great they played a lot of their own new material instead, otherwise they&#8217;d probably start to feel too much like a cover band.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re all very talented, passionate musicians, and Lara sings like an angel. I love the way Peter plays his cello like an upright bass, and Shenzo is amazing with his banjo and blues guitar style playing of his viola turned on it&#8217;s side. Not forgetting Tim with his excellent effected sounds and expressive playing style.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I could have seen them play again on the Friday as well. I look forward to their new releases, and hope to see them live again soon. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fourplay.com.au\">http:\/\/www.fourplay.com.au<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/fourplaystringquartet\">http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/fourplaystringquartet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I went and saw fabulous Sydney string quartet FourPlay perform live last week on Thursday 8th February, at The Studio &#8211; Sydney Opera House. Thursday&#8217;s show focused on rock\/pop music and was the first of three shows at The Studio &#8211; Sydney Opera House, as part of their FourPlay &#8211; Three Ways performances. The following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/decoded.outer-rim.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}