Featured in Farrago 2025 - Volume 101, Edition 4.

Hailing from PICA, Fremantle indie quartet Spacey Jane braved the Port-Melbourne iciness to deliver an electric performance to fans in need of a winter warmer.  

I’ll admit freely that I was worried by the immediate sea of phones that appeared in anticipation for the opening song; screens lighting up like glowing periscopes above the bobbing heads. Usually, I’m put off by this as it signals a crowd checked out of the moment or at least preoccupied to some extent by The Perfect Shot. However, I was proven wrong as "Through My Teeth” was sung not only by the band but by every member of the crowd. The devotion was palpable and thankfully, the phones started to disappear. 

PICA was filled to the brim and threatening to spill, with my dreams of a second drink or a bathroom break dashed by unending seas of mullets and moustaches. Cheers reverberated through the empty gin fizz can I held for the entire set, an echoing buzz of excitement and bass. There truly was excitement in that crowd, even where I stood (not so close to the front). Every song’s opening note sparked an eruption of knowing cheers and audible smiles, asserting that Spacey Jane truly knows what their audience wants to hear and delivers accordingly. 

The strobing stage visuals transported me back to the simpler times of mid-2010s vaporwave. I was practically waiting for that Greek statue to start bobbing behind the band, encircled by glitching palm trees. The colours felt warm but appropriately wintry at the same time, flooding PICA with a purple haze. The band’s silhouettes were stark against the background for many of the instrumental interludes, creating a cartoonish vibe (very Guitar Hero-esque). 

The setlist mixed classic Spacey Jane hits like “Feeding the Family”, “Skin” and “Booster Seat” with tracks from their new record: “If That Makes Sense”, but the imbalance between these eras of songs did illuminate the weaknesses of their new album. The golden oldies still shone bright in the setlist but tracks from the new record melted quickly from my mind. 

“If That Makes Sense” suffers slightly in comparison with some of their earlier work. Of course, a band’s discography shouldn’t be confined to a single sound, but I found that I could sing along to recent releases despite not knowing the lyrics beforehand. “Ily the Most” and “Whateverrr” stayed firmly in the lane of indie pop expectations in a way that I believe songs from “Sunlight” and “Here Comes Everybody” subvert to create intimate lyricism that invites listeners in. 

Overall, there was little time for chit-chat, with the set just as packed to the brim as the venue. I appreciated the band’s clear attention to song transitions which maintained momentum nicely between songs. This also meant that the groove never stopped on stage, a sweat-slicked Caleb Harper contrasting the chattering teeth of the crowd at the wrath of Melbourne winter. Harper joked that the crowd should layer up using merch. 

Any hang-ups I had about the newer tracks from Spacey Jane were evidently not shared by those in my immediate vicinity, with almost every lyric sung flawlessly by devoted fans with their arms around their friends. I could feel the warmth of the community in the venue; the little families of young faces dotted around the mosh. The group directly in from of me really took it to the next level, pumping fists and jumping together on the beat in a joyful mess of limbs. It’s hard not to smile when you see a band’s music have that effect on a crowd and for that, I applaud Spacey Jane.