2006

03/12/05 Homebake Festival, Sydney
26/11/05 Manly Fisho's
25/11/05 The Band Room @ Newcastle Leagues Club
11/11/05 QUT Guild Bar, Brisbane
10/11/05 Hotel Great Northern, Byron Bay
04/11/05 Corner Hotel, Melbourne
29/10/05 Roadhouse, Wollongong
28/10/05 Stonefest, Canberra
21/10/05 Metro, Sydney
15/10/05 Fly By Night Club, Fremantle
14/10/05 Rosemount Hotel, Perth
13/10/05 Fowlers Live Adelaide
23/07/05 Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay
22/07/05 The Zoo, Brisbane
03/07/05 Annandale Hotel, Sydney
26/03/05 Cockatoo Island Festival, Sydney
06/02/05 Big Day Out, Perth
04/02/05 Big Day Out, Adelaide
30/01/05 Big Day Out, Melbourne
26/01/05 Big Day Out, Sydney
23/01/05 Big Day Out, Gold Coast
14/01/05 Becks Festival Bar

2004

2003

2002

2001

04/11/05
The Corner - Melbourne

Decoder Ring, Expatriate

Sydney outfit Decoder Ring have doubled on stage since early performances a few years back, when its three founding members - Matt Fitzgerald, Tom Schutzinger and Pete Kelly - ground out walls of music textured with roaring electric guitars that shifted between ambient symphonies and synthesizer-heavy electro-rock epics.

Since their award-winning soundtrack to the film Somersault brought them mainstream appeal in 2004, with triple j and other media outlets warming to the gossamer-fragile title track, Decoder Ring have streamlined their sound on their new album, Fractions, to one that charges along with fierce analogue hooks and catchy electro anthems, albeit with the familiar roaring guitars.

Thanks to its radio-song sentiments, Fractions also marks a rise in prominence of vocalist Lenka. This pocket-rocket in leopard print embraced her new role naturally in the Corner hotel gig, seducing the audience with shoulder-shaking dance moves and a naughty-but-nice manner of controlling the crowd. Her distinctively breathy, high voice rarely wavered as she delivered the lyrics from new numbers Jets and Fractions so strongly that they were only marginally distinguishable from the recording.

Now playing as a six-piece, Decoder Ring's frenzied drum beats on songs like Shining Path marked the earlier part of their set, before the Sydney-siders settled into a more subdued interlude care of ambient tunes like Serac, and an eagerly anticipated rendition of Somersault, which Lenka gasped out divinely.

But it was on the encore that Decoder Ring really pulled out all stops, delivering their cult hit Welcome Shoppers with smatterings of head banging from Lenka and the now familiar projections of a herd of horses charging through water.

There's a glamour to Decoder Ring as this new party-beast that is distinctively Sydney; perhaps it's the leopard print. But nowhere do its members sacrifice style and flair for articulate musicianship and a respect for the audience.

Wish they played in Melbourne more often.

Alexandra Roginski