Home & Away with The Stands

The Stands have come a long way in 2004. Tonight, they could not get much further.  Gigwise caught up with Howie Payne and the boys at the Sydney Metro, on the last night of their Australian tour with Jet.

So how have the band found Australia?  “We’ve loved it, we’ve properly loved it.” Says Payne emphatically.  “We never thought we’d come here.  It’s one of the places you just don’t think you’ll come on tour.”

For months, press coverage of The Stands in Australia has been outstanding and the tour eagerly awaited.  Sydney’s Daily Telegraph likened The Stands supporting role to that of The Strokes on their first tour with You Am I.  Has touring with Jet given The Stands the same lead?
 
“We did a show last night, our own show, and both of them sold out which was really a surprise to us.  You know we still don’t sell out some gigs in England.  When you’ve been there before, some people come to check you out and some people don’t. It don’t phase us, but you’re kind of just expecting it when you come to a foreign country – so far away.  For so many people to come and welcome you, it’s mad!”

”We were in a café and somebody said ‘are you The Stands?’ When we came here, we didn’t expect anyone to know who we were.  We’ve come to play. That’s what we’ve come to do – we haven’t come on holiday – we’ve come to do our gigs and play our music to people.  So to have that sort of response at the end of it, is a little overwhelming…ly Good. But, then we’ll go to America and probably nobody will know who we are again – or we’re sort of expecting no one to know who we are.  That’s the way we go into every culture we’ve never been to before.  It’s the wisest way.”

The Stands met a similar response when they toured Europe.  “To sell out shows in Switzerland is bizarre” says Payne, but to do it in Australia is stranger.  “It’s because it’s so far away.  We knew that if we could just do some shows and get to know everybody that would be cool, but we didn’t think that people would take to it so much, so quickly.  It’s been really flattering, because they like music over here.”

“People were thanking us for coming and we were like ‘What do you mean?  Thanks for coming,’ to one of the greatest places in the world – Melbourne Beach – or wherever it is – God you know, we’re really lucky to be able to go to places – never mind ‘Thanks for coming’, It’s like ‘Thanks for havin’ us’.”

In a venue where the most craved for illicit substance is nicotine, space in the auditorium could be hard to fill.  Yet, as The Stands open their set, the atmosphere in the Metro is already buoyant. When they launch into their single ‘I Need You’, it's evident the hair-raising quality – perhaps lacking on their album – is ever-present in their live performance.  
 
Clearer still, is the extent to which they have evolved as a band, their experimental instrumentals, led by drummer Steve Pilgrim, elevate the crowd beyond the heights usually invoked by a support act and demonstrate a capacity to do far more than amplified folk.

Tomorrow they will leave their new buddies in their home town of Sydney and jet off to Los Angeles for two gigs and ‘to sit in the sun’.  The prospect of this is obviously appealing, yet it seems that after many months away, just a part of each of The Stands would happily be flying in to John Lennon airport.  It just goes to prove that wherever you are or wherever you are going, sometimes there is no place quite like home.