Gold Panda live at Oxford Art Factory
Arriving 25 minutes into the set due to some seriously epic fails courtesy of CityRail (fuck, and we thought SouthernRail took the cake for incompetence…) Carol Bowditch pranced into Gold Panda’s set at Somethingyousaid.com’s second home, Oxford Art Factory in Sydney on a muggy Thursday eve:
I first chanced upon Gold Panda when I was living in China. When things would often get too rough – like getting groped on public transport by men who assured me that I was Cinderella, or when I couldn’t pronounce the street I lived on in any correct manner to cab drivers taking me home, it was comforting to have a record to play on repeat. Namely, the track Same Dream China, because, well, you can see in the song’s title. So after all of these happy experiences with the half-man-half-panda years ago with his album Lucky Shiner, you can imagine my disappointment at missing a third of the set and my favourite (most listen worthy) track off his new album, Brazil.
The room was full but only a slight portion was dancing to begin with. After a few numbers, it became apparent that having any sort of fluidity of movement in line with the beats of the set was impossible due to the constant changing of time signatures. Getting used to a repetition and then it changing left me swaying and bopping all out of whack.
Anyway, noteworthy tracks were You followed by You (the slower one) off the excellent Lucky Shiner album as well as, We Work Nights, the emotional Reprise and the London garage encore track, Greek Style.
The instrumental tracks were impressively mixed live by the lone British producer on stage. I often find watching artists of this genre playing live a little dull, especially on the occasions that I am stone sober, so to supplement the performance was an excellent visual projection that kept things exciting as Gold Panda whizzed about the stage.
Despite missing the support act, local ambient groovers, Black Vanilla and a chunk of Gold Panda’s set it was a highly enjoyable re-introduction to Sydney nightlife after a lengthy hiatus.
Words and terrible live shot by Carol Bowditch.
