garran | What holds me together

I think that Perpetual Dream Theory have got better; there was a deftness that I don't think was there before, and a sort of intensity, and a couple of laptops, and euphoria, on my part, though that's maybe the hardest bit to quantify. Using the laptops and the deftness, they did some things with "Angels of Search and Rescue" that I think made for my favourite performance of that song that they've ever done, including the one on the first album.

In other ways, they haven't changed: not emotionally, where, although there were something like eighty people there (sitting in carefully set out chairs), the room felt small, and they moved like they knew us. The drummer is still by far the most fun band member to watch. Gordon Breckenridge's voice still sneaks in for powerful and unexpected harmonies, and, on the whole, he still doesn't sing as much as I'd like him to.

Andrew came, and sat next to me, and melted gum all over his hands. "Now I have a superpower," he told me after the show. "My superpower is that, if I grab hold of someone, I can't let go."

I went up to say hi to Gordon (who "sort of remembered" me), collected my sticky companion, and smiled the whole way home.

I'm not sure that I like the new album as much as I liked the live show; it's short, and I'm not sure how cohesive it is. The individual songs, though, are very good.