"SOUP!", or, Tunng @ The Spiegeltent, 13/1/08


13 jan 2008, 15:58

Sun 13 Jan – Tunng

I only started listening to Tunng a month or so ago, partly because I heard that they were doing shows at the Sydney Festival, and partly because Niki started listening to them and liked them. I actually have quite different taste to Niki, so I have no idea why I always accept her endorsements, but I do. Anyway, from their name and the album cover of Good Arrows, I was assuming that they would be a mildly pretentious post-rock band. Instead their music is incredibly joyful and interesting (and unpretentious). Live, they are like that, but a thousand times more so.

We got tickets as part of Tix for Next to Nix, and wow is that the best $25 I've spent in a good long while. They're so... fun (there's really no better word) to see making music, Martin Smith tinkling with bizarre looking sets of bells, Becky Jacobs playing a plastic butterfly she found in the Botanical Gardens earlier in the day, Mike Lindsay stamping his feet and strumming his guitar with his shades on like a super cool maniac, the whole band freezing into extended tableaus at random moments.

And they're just so friendly and easy going with their audience banter. Mike Lindsay said something along the lines of, "Australia's great, all sex and sunshine and." There was a short pause and he said, genuinely confused, "Did I just say sex and sunshine?". That doesn't seem funny typed out, but it was and the atmosphere of the show was such that everyone was comfortable to laugh really hard; the band was doing it. During one song (I forget which, I'm terrible at the gig-review business) they handed out lollies and Sam Genders asked us to use the wrappers to make ambient rustling noises with. Lollies!

I think they played almost everything off Good Arrows; Arms, Bricks and Soup being highlights. They ended their set before the encore with Bullets, which was rollicking, stage shaking craziness. I wanted to get up and dance around.

Anyway, if you've never heard their music, I think they can be classified as an experimental electronic folk band? (Folktronic?) Mellow voices laid over guitar strummed tunes laid over some insanely cool percussion laid over some very random electronic sampling. Also, they tend to skew more to stamp-your-feet-clap-your hands side of the folk spectrum i.e. they are FUN. Give them a try, especially live, if you can. You will stamp your feet and clap your hands along with them.


  • SimpleeSimon

    damn you 18+ gigs

    14 jan 2008, 08:32
  • stickwriter

    Becky Jacobs playing a plastic butterfly she found in the Botanical Gardens She only CLAIMED that - the sounds coming from it sounded strangely familiar (maybe used in the album) or if I'm just imagining that, I've seen photos of her holding it at previous gigs. so I have no idea why I always accept her endorsements, but I do hahah - we might have different taste but it's GOOD taste. fo real :P No but really it's not all that different - the core bands are diffferent but the finges match, sort of, don't they? Or like, the bands may be different but the driving force is the same. </bs> Do you listen to their albums?

    19 jan 2008, 03:28
  • Lifestyle_x

    I remember the Pukkelpop '08 festival in Belgium. I just randomly walked into a tent and there they were. Watched the whole gig, it was pretty rad. At the time, I only knew the bigger bands like Dropkick Murphys, Metallica, Danko Jones, The Breeders, etc... Tunng made me open my mind towards "smaller" bands. Also, I love "Soup" so much. They played it at the fest as a tribute to Lars Ulrich (Metallica's drummer), cause they were headlining that evening.

    16 jul 2012, 10:00
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