Beards

I'll just start this post by exposing my ignorant/feminine side, but I don't know a lot about beards. I can't grow one, I don't know how they grow, why they grow, or how many different shapes and sizes they come in. All I know is that they appear on ridiculously good looking men, make ridiculously un-good looking men more good looking, and there's this awesome band that's named after them. In relevance to this post, the latter of my observations on beards is the most important. Ladies and gentlemen, I SAW THE BEARDS LIVE. Not once, but twice even!

Dodgy quality picture of the bands' drum set up. THE DRUMS ARE BEARDED PEOPLE.

Super dodgy quality pic of the band arriving, Jive Bar 14 December 2011.

Yes, the Adelaide born (yay Adelaide) band returned home to perform two shows over the last week. Kicking off with 'A Very Bearded Christmas', their famously annual Christmas show, over the weekend and then filming the video clip for 'You should consider having sex with a bearded man' (link to performance of the song live at Triple J earlier this year), the shows come just in time to really make Decembeard.

The first of the shows, held on December 10th at Jive Bar, was awesomely fantastic. They were supported by two bands; The Stiffys, and The Timbers both of which had unique but truly exciting energy. (Especially The Stiffys. Check them out, they're a two piece band from Melbourne that play songs exclusively about erections. Plus the drummer made the room really quite warm.) So even by the time The Beards got up there it was a great night. If you've ever seen any of the guys' video clips on youtube or wherever, let me just say they are one hundred per cent themselves in all of them. It's not a charade (too much) put on for the laughs, they're just genuinely witty, talented, decent blokes that love beards and henceforth make music about them. They sang all the greatest hits including; Who Told You To Shave Off Your Beard, No Beard No Good, Born With A Beard, If Your Dad Doesn't Have A Beard You've Got Two Mums, (one which I believe was)Kings Of Leon Are Shit, and their new single of course, You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man. Jive Bar is honestly one of the best venues ever, so I had a front-row, birds-eye view of the entire show and these men are so talented. A few of you may think 'But they sing about beards. How good can they really be?', but I encourage you to take that thought and throw it away with every last razor/shaver you own. Beards are great. The Beards are great. The night was very chilled back and ran super smooth despite a few technical difficulties, it definitely left the crowd (and myself) wanting more!

The Beards: band profile picture from 2010, photo credit at Musicvice.com

Moving onto the video shoot I attended last night, this was a pretty crazy cool experience. I've never had anything to do with any kind of music video shoot before so it was all new and interesting. Number one on agenda of awesome; we got free beer on entrance. Number two on agenda of awesome; there was so many bearded men there. I was having trouble controlling myself honestly. It was definitely a chilled out evening with everyone simply being asked to be super energetic whenever the cameras were out of the music was being played. I'm not completely sure of how much I can or can't disclose previous to the release of the video clip (due out early 2012) but here's the gist of it that I gathered; Shown through the eyes of a young lady, it appears as if it will be the journey from a Beards gig to the bedroom of a bearded man. We can only hope? I know I'd like to experience this journey first hand.

The glorious image of 'Johann Beardraven' gyrating against the mic stand shall be forever ingrained on my brain. Just glorious.

The contraption they used to get the 'point of view' shots looked super interesting, although awkward for the wearer. Jive Bar 14 December 2011 'You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man' video shoot.

As a band, I guess they remind me of AC/DC, or early Kings Of Leon (pre-shaving off their beards), and that instantly takes their music cred to a hectic level of good for me. They're pretty big around Australia so if you haven't been to one of their gigs, you probably should. If you like music, beer, blokes and beards, then you'll love these guys. Actually you don't even have to like those things to like these guys, you might love tea and ballet and like these guys! Say NO to social cliches right! But hey, that's not what's important here. What's really important here are, well, beards.

Happy Decembeard everyone, I hope your Christmas is merry and New Years is safe. See you in Janu-hairy!
Much love, Sarah x