27 July 2022 – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne – words and pictures by Ashlea Caygill
I was excited to attend Dayglow’s sold out Splendour sideshow at the Corner Hotel. The band room was packed when I got there and there was a buzz of excitement from the punters.
Dayglow is the project of Texan Sloan Struble, and while Struble is the instigator and main contributor of Dayglow, he prefers to look at Dayglow as a collective effort – much like the same vibe as Tame Impala.
Support for the evening was Sydney artist KESMAR, AKA Nathan Hawkes. Having spent the best part of a decade in the alt-folk world, KESMAR has gone into the yacht rock of 80’s with synths and keys abounding. Huge cheers greeted KESMAR, they played a couple of songs then introduced the band. They played ‘Back Up’ then another from the latest EP to huge applause. They then played off their upcoming album ‘Is It Me, Or Is It Love?’ with some very danceable keys and guitar riffs throughout.
Checking in with the audience, KESMAR asked if everyone was happy, having fun, the crowd assured them that they were. They played another new one, ‘Day by Day’ that had a huge keyboard solo – nailed with a triumphant grin from the keys player. They finished up with ‘Meteorite’, a huge crowd favourite.
And then it was time for Dayglow! They came on and went straight into their song ‘Something’, then a mash-up of the old favourite ‘Funky Town’ and their song ‘Medicine’. Next up Sloan and their guitarist came forward to jam out ‘Fair Game’ together.
“This next one is a fun one, let’s rock!“, and introduced ‘Hot Rod’. The whole room had their hands in the air clapping along, with huge cheers at the end of the song, “…you guys are a rowdy bunch!“
Dayglow then moved through a new song and then ‘Balcony’, then introduced the band. “And you’re all here, it’ll take some time to learn all your names so on 123 say your name out loud.” Then slowing things down played a song from their first album, Fuzzy Brain.
Dayglow continued to hype the crowd up throughout the rest of the set, with ‘False Direction’, ‘Listerine’ and ‘Can I Call You Tonight?’, telling them that they were the the best crowd and getting everyone to sing along. They wrapped up their set with a mash-up of Tears For Fears, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule The World’ and their own ‘Run the World’ to end on a huge high.
Dayglow’s show was such an engaging one – crowd participation was more than encouraged and the energy given by the crowd was more than returned by the artist. With Dayglow saying that they wanted to come back to Australia soon, I can’t wait to see them again.
