Project Description

CIGARETTES AFTER SEX

@ THE ZOO

4.01.18

(Live Review)

Reviewer: Alexandra Ainsworth

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Cigarettes After Sex have completely sold out their first Australian tour, their ambient dream pop pulling huge crowds across most capital cities in the country. We had the chance to catch their set in the middle of their tour in Brisbane’s iconic Zoo as one of the first gigs of 2018, to see what all the fuss was about.

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The venue is at capacity for the sold-out show, the Zoo feeling especially balmy in the midst of Summer with a restless crowd slowly inching closer towards the stage. The heat makes the set change from the Deck Panthers DJs an especially long wait, but the audience seems to collectively forgive Cigarettes After Sex when they make their appearance—each member walking on stage with complete nonchalance despite the obviously thrilled crowd.

The band immediately launch straight into Sweet from their debut record. The first few chords quieten down the tipsy cheers, and a calm contentedness washes over the crowd. It’s an unspoken agreement within the Zoo that lets Cigarettes After Sex truly display their talents, undisturbed by any unnecessary noise from the room. Lead Greg Gonzalez’s vocals are so soft and hazy, it almost feels uncomfortably intimate, as though being privy to such a set is like looking at one’s deepest vulnerabilities. While the band physically remain fairly static, their sound carries through the room in a way that encapsulates each member of the crowd in their own personal way.

While listening to the setlist roll on, it’s not hard to see how the name Cigarettes After Sex came to be, as the atmosphere the band create is almost ephemeral: a carefully blended mix of intimacy with broad chords, strings, and bass that slowly drive Gonzalez’s lyrics forward. It’s easy to get completely consumed by the dreaminess of it all, but that’s not to say that the tracks ever get lost in a mundane loop. While metronomically, the set remains fairly consistent, each track has its own story—some about love, some about loss, and some about telling people to go fuck themselves.

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The set cuts short at just shy of an hour and a half, with an encore of Apocalypse leaving us fully satisfied and ready to part ways. The crowd slowly file out back into the car horns and drunken yelling that is the Thursday night happening back on the street—a world that now seems so wildly distant and uncomfortable compared to the delicate bubble that Cigarettes After Sex held us in.  

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