In the four short years since formation, The Preatures have become one of the most talked about new Australian bands, and after the release of their debut album, Blue Planet Eyes, the five-piece looks set to become the next Aussies to make it big overseas.

Back on Australian soil after an extensive international touring schedule across Europe, the US and the UK, including gigs at some of the world’s most iconic music festivals like South By Southwest, Glastonbury, Bonnaroo and Coachella, the Sydney based band took to the stage at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre last Saturday night for the Melbourne leg of their Blue Planet Eyes tour in what was an unsurprisingly spectacular performance.

Opening with an enchanting rendition of the new albums title track and tour namesake ‘Blue Planet Eyes’, the stage was set with a stunning display of twinkling lights reminiscent of the night sky, adding to the atmosphere of the already ambient Forum Theatre.

The band amped up the energy with ‘Somebody’s Talking’, the second single off the new album that’s received non-stop radio play in recent weeks and was without doubt a crowd favourite.

While some of the softer tracks throughout the evening seemed to fail to hold the attention of the rowdy Saturday night audience, lead singer Isabella Manfredi is an undeniably magnetic front woman, bouncing around onstage with endless energy while exuding ample amounts of chemistry with her fellow band mates, guitarists Gideon Bensen and Jack Moffitt, bassist Thomas Champion and drummer Luke Davison.

The band followed on with ‘Manic Baby’, one of the tracks from the Is This How You Feel EP that first earned The Preatures the attention they deserved. Other tracks they treated us to included ‘Threat’ off their 2012 EP Shaking Hands, as well as ‘Whatever You Want’, ‘Two Tone Melody’ from the new record.

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Standout performances of the night were the very 80s vibe track ‘Ordinary’, and of course ‘Is This How You Feel’, which saw an beautiful explosion of gold streamers which cascaded down from the ceiling like fireworks.

The night ended with an encore of a very mellow performance of ‘Business, Yeah’ followed by an upbeat old favourite, ‘Take A Card’, a fun duet by Manfredi and Bensen from Shaking Hands, and a really great track to finish up on.

Reviews have likened the Blue Planet Eyes record to a modern day Fleetwood Mac, yet Manfredi’s vocals throughout her live performance feature a rasp reminiscent of Suzi Quatro, and not dissimilar to Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It’s a shame those raspy vocals don’t feature more on the record.

While there is nothing to fault vocally on Blue Planet Eyes, the way Manfredi sings live is really something else – and had there been more of an effort to capture that instead of perhaps striving for a cleaner sound, it could have potentially added another level of depth to the entire album.

At this point, it doesn’t look like The Preatures will be slowing down anytime soon. The Blue Planet Eyes tour will continue across the country through until December where they will then play the Beyond The Valley and Lost Paradise festivals.

The buzz around this band seems to be growing and growing both in here in Australia and overseas, so if you want to see them we recommend trying to get to one of their upcoming shows as it looks like they’ll be set to embark on another international tour very soon.

Check out the photo gallery from this show here.

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