Thursday 12/04/07 The Vines, Red Riders, The Silents @ The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide

The question: how do you build a good set? It might seem straightforward enough, but the support acts tonight have decided to give us a somewhat torturous, two-part lesson in exactly that subject. The Silents start well enough and prove themselves capable of a tight, competent performance. Unfortunately their vocals grate, they don’t have enough good ideas to compensate and their self-proclaimed blend of rock and psychedelia (the term seems a bit rich for something so straightforward) becomes tedious all too quickly.

Red Riders build their set the other way around, improving – which, it must be said, they need to – as they go along. There’s no real inspiration to speak of, at least to start, but they slowly create an atmosphere. The turning point is their recent single 'Slide In Next To Me', and by the end of the set they’re putting on a decent stage show to go with their strongest material. Just when things promise to get really interesting, they vanish, leaving us to idly wonder what they might have done with another few minutes – like the ones they wasted earlier, for example.

So there’s our answer: you need to start well and get better. It’s just a shame that it took two bands to bring us to that pearl of wisdom.

When The Vines finally appear their reception is jubilant, and the applause must be at least partially inspired by the performance they gave the last time they played in Adelaide, just ten weeks earlier. It seems initially that they intend to carry on exactly where they left off, and three songs in, after a decent warm up with more recent material, we get a blistering version of 'Highly Evolved'. That’s followed by a run through 'Autumn Shade' where singer-guitarist Craig Nicholls seems to be sending himself up, but then we’re back to The Vines at their best with 'Don’t Listen To The Radio'.