MUSIC
The Preatures
The Forum, November 22
★★★☆
For a band that have seemingly blown up overnight, The Preatures, and particularly frontwoman Isabella Manfredi, look like they've been preparing for this moment all their lives.
On Saturday night, they performed at the Forum; back in May, they were at the much smaller Corner Hotel in Richmond. It's a sign of just how much their star has risen in the interim – their debut album Planet Blue Eyes dropped to widespread acclaim in September and last weekend they supported the Rolling Stones at their Hunter Valley gig in NSW – something they probably didn't foresee when playing "bad Stones covers" as a fledgling band in 2008.
Appearances at Coachella Festival and Glastonbury have happened along the way too, all of which have given the Sydney band plenty of opportunity to hone their live show. It's a corker. All are sound musicians, but it's Manfredi – beautiful, cool, kinetic and velvet-voiced – that you can't take your eyes away from.
Singing and playing keys, she's joined by guitarist, songwriter and co-producer Jack Moffitt – Manfredi's boyfriend – bassist Tom Champion, drummer Luke Davison and guitarist/vocalist Gideon Bensen and together they reel through all of the infectious pop-rock from the concise Planet Blue Eyes and a couple of lesser-known tracks from their 2012 EP Shaking Hands.
The poppier, highly danceable tracks like Somebody's Talking and Is This How You Feel? are what get the crowd going, but in quieter moments and especially during the elegiac Two Tone Melody Manfredi's remarkable voice proves just as compelling as her stage antics – throughout, she whips her hair around, jumps up and down, performs cartwheels and commands attention with an energy that recalls a young Debbie Harry or Pat Benatar.
"I'm in love," was overheard from more than one of the many males present in the crowd, and it's for this reason that Manfredi might do well to tone down the obvious on-stage affection between her and Moffitt. The ladies might think it sweet, but her male fans might prefer not to have their fantasies so blatantly disrupted. It also threatens to detract from her connection with other band members, most notably Bensen, who reveals a disarmingly beautiful voice on Is This How You Feel? one that is hopefully better utilised on forthcoming Preatures releases.
On the weight of this show, though – and providing Manfredi and Moffitt remain happily hooked up off stage – this a band with the potential to be not just big, but huge.
