Dope Lemon
22nd August 2018
Powerstation, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Mike Beck. Photography kindly provided by Megs Moss / Libel Music.
Come inside, it’s warm in here, and so are the vibes. Yet another despairingly rainy night in Auckland did not deter fans of Australian Folk/Indie/Trip act Dope Lemon from heading out to The Powerstation in droves, ensuring the venue yet another sold-out status, for an evening of retrospective grooving and shaking.
Dope Lemon is the brainchild musical group of Angus Stone, the brother of elder sibling Julia, with whom he is best known, having worked with her predominantly as a duo. As well as these two groups, Stone has also performed and released material as a soloist under the pseudonym of Lady of the Sunshine, Smoking Gun the only album released to date. But tonight, is all about Dope Lemon, having just dropped Smooth Big Cat the sophomore album to 2016’s Honey Bones, a timely trip to Aotearoa was obviously on the cards.
A side project of sorts, Dope Lemon offers a vehicle for Stone to loosen up both musically and aesthetically. It’s difficult to know however, if Stone is incognito, creating another persona, or just giving himself the chance to be who he truly is a bit more than usual.
Opening the evening was a young Aussie trio, called Golf Alpha Bravo, who proclaimed that this gig was their first abroad. All three sported long hair, with the lads playing a melodic brand of guitar-based pop-rock. Notable influences for them were, The Hendrix Experience, Nirvana, and Silverchair. Their sound and playing had good synergy, although more groove and melody than raw power. This was exemplified by their drummer, who covered all of his skins with tea-towels, even his snare. They did well, enjoyed themselves, and were a good fit for what was to come.
All the young lovers had arrived in force by time the main act took to the stage; Dope Lemon appearing in funky, retro outfits, creating a breezy groove for opener ‘Stonecutters.’ Reacting to the rousing reception from the audience, Stone startlingly responded “Oh, shit.” With ‘How Many Times’, it was clear Dope Lemon were all about creating mellow mood music, with arrangements leaving plenty of space for instrumentation to percolate, and lyrical lines being delivered in a laidback, casual manner.
Single ‘Marinade’ was a hit on release and certainly proved to be a hit with the ensconced audience. First song off the new record ‘Hey You’, sounded like the ideal music for youthful couples to take on weekend road-trips, running away with each other and embracing whatever encounters may come their way.
‘Coyote’, ‘Hey Little Baby’ and ‘Fuck Things Up’ offered more tunes that were presumably in one or two chords, without a key change from verse to chorus. This seems to be a compositional trope that Stone employs to give Dope Lemon’s material its dreamy and languid quality.
The title track from their debut, ‘Honey Bones’ is an obvious nod to The Velvet Underground, with not only the band’s name being referenced lyrically, but the combined use of drone-like guitars and percussion the set up for a slow-building exclamation. ‘Salt & Pepper’ a personal favourite of Stone’s, is a sinuous tune, a reminder of empyrean nights lovingly created with friends; as Stone muses “kick back and let this one sail you into a good place my friends”. The set closer ‘Home Soon’ the only song to be played off 2017’s EP Hounds Tooth.
Throughout the set, the five-piece band performed solidly, and all looked their part. Sadly however, Stone’s vocals were not represented well, due to a poor sound mix on the night. His vocals buried somewhere underneath the instrumentation, at times made his lyrics almost inaudible. Having said this, Dope Lemon are very much the antithesis of Leonard Cohen when it comes to wordsmithery, their main charms being a chilled out musical style, and their rather fly threads.
They returned to the stage for a single song encore, and rather fittingly it was ‘Uptown Folks.’ With its allusion to corporate take-over; “uptown folks pay very well indeed” and the refrain; “back to the garden we will go”, this mini Dope Lemon anthem times in well with the 50th Anniversary of the infamous Woodstock festival and celebrations of it occurring concurrently. The song Woodstock itself, which was penned by Joni Mitchell (who was unable to play at the event at the time), contains the lyric; “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Throw in the passing of Peter Fonda last week, who was the star of 1969’s Easy Rider (which just celebrated its 50th anniversary also), and the call for oneness could not be any clearer.
Eleven songs in all, this was a short set in terms of titles, but the arrangements had durations that often extended well beyond regular song lengths. The tranquillity factor was in the air as everyone calmly exited, with less concern about the weather than when they had entered the building. Yes, Dope Lemon were dope.
Were you there at the Powerstation to witness this beautiful singer-songwriter? Or have you seen Dope Lemon perform somewhere else? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Setlist:
- Stone Cutters
- How Many Times
- Marinade
- Hey You
- Coyote
- Hey Little Baby
- Fuck Things Up
- Honey Bones
- Salt N Pepper
- Home Soon
- Uptown Folk [encore]
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