The Jungle Giants: Used To Be In Love Tour
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The Jungle Giants: Used To Be In Love Tour

Brisbane indie-rock band The Jungle Giants opened their first night of their Australian tour with a reverberating electro-pop sound that seized every member of the audience at The Barwon Club on Thursday night. With fun pink and purple lighting and a tight first tune, the Brisbane band had won the crowd within the first five minutes of their stage presence.
One shining, admirable feature of The Jungle Giant’s performance was that the band wasn’t there just to promote their new album – they were there to have a good time and ensure everyone else was having a great time too.
After exploding onto the stage with their first tune, The Jungle Giants continued the high-energy burst with ‘She’s a Riot’, with the whole crowd singing and bopping along to the tune. Hales’ voice, incredibly unique and endearing, sounded even better and stronger in the live set than in recordings, which is a rare and very welcome surprise for a band with such high intensity.
After impressing and engaging the crowd with one of their golden oldies, The Jungle Giants played a few songs from their new self-produced album, ‘Quiet Ferocity’. ‘Waiting For a Sign’ had the whole crowd waving their hands in the air to the climactic bridge. The bright lights exposed the band properly for the first time to viewers, which enlivened the crowd.
It’s been reported that the band, and especially Hales, have been working tirelessly to tighten their third album, and in the songs played from it this was clear. All band members played succinctly and with purpose, delivering a seamless set.
Breaking it up and going back to the classics, The Jungle Giants played ‘On Your Way Down’ and it’s about here that I lost my train of thought because Alice Ivy the support act was half walking, half boogieing through the crowd. Pause review while I gush – Alice Ivy has released some pretty remarkable music recently and seems like an all-round legend. If you didn’t already know she’s a local, so you should definitely check her out! Only after choking up and managing to get a few strangled ‘I love you Alice’s out, I composed myself and was able to again focus on the music… Which is what I will get back to now… *resume review*.
The Jungle Giants continued to excite the crowd with thumping tracks like ‘Quiet Ferocity’ and ‘Every Kind of Way’. By this stage, the crowd was so amped that there were people hanging from the rafters, a sea of people on shoulders, crowd surfers, a mosh pit and many, many drinks being spilled. Our energy seemed only to be mirrored on stage, with The Jungle Giants intensifying their performance.
Just when you felt the fire of a Jungle-Giant-infused intoxication in your belly, the lead guitarist took the stage solo and went absolutely ham on a funky riff. After an elongated solo performance, the other band members re-entered the stage, getting into the groove.
The Jungle Giants went out with a bang with ‘Bad Dream’, ‘Used To Be In Love’ and ‘Feel The Way I do’, leaving a permanent, funky, electro-pop skidmark of a memory on The Barwon Club bandroom.
The Barwon Club, Geelong – Thursday April 5 2018.
Reviewed by Mia Turnley