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No one brings the party quite like Australia’s The Grates.  With a fast fury, the three piece (who performed with an extra member to play keyboard) brought Chicago forty-five minutes of pure energy.  Spearheading the effort was Patience Hodgson, a woman who convinced the audience she might be physically incapable of standing still.  Instead of playing an instrument, she danced and jumped around the stage with reckless abandon, even jumping into the audience at one point (and riding on the back of an audience member’s shoulders) with a long twirler in her hand.

The Grates have created two albums filled with vigorous and enthusiastic tracks. Their most recent release, 2008’s Teeth Lost, Hearts Won has an especially apt title indeed.  It’s fairly conceivable that Hodgson in particular wouldn’t even register any pain as long as she was charming her audience.  In fact, she even had band aids visible underneath her leotard at the show, though this seemed far more cute than alarming.

The setlist for The Grates show was fairly even between the two albums and the songs were played with the fast ardor you’d expect.  In fact, it’s a testament to the band to be able to keep up with Hodgson’s quick physicality, especially drummer Alana Skyring who played just as furiously as the songs demand.  Where Hodgson’s main talent lies outside of creating an entertaining performance is in her distinctive vocal delivery as well as her ability to keep up a perfect sense of timing throughout her stage antics.  The songs never got off to a false start or faltered overall, which created a sense of rhythm as smooth as it was swift.  Guitarist John Patterson also helped to bring the catchy song hooks to full fruition stage left of Hodgson in a way that supported a happier kind of edge.