Before heading into the Oxford Art Factory last Friday night, I wouldn’t have said that I was a part of the few hundred Kingswood fans I entered with. This distance from the four piece, if only for a lack of familiarity, immediately dissipated when the opening song of their set blared forth from the stage.

Live gigs are a kind of magical thing. Whether it’s in an intimate venue like the Oxford, or a huge stadium, live music has the potential to instantly intensify your love for an artist. At times this comes from the feeling of sharing the same space, as the performance moves through its highs and lows, or it can be the on-stage presence of the band, which makes you feel as if you’ve been welcomed into an old friend’s home. Kingswood are a band that know this, and happily expanded their number of acolytes by at least one that evening.

What the Melbourne-born rock band – composed of Fergus Linacre, Alex Laska, Braiden Michetti and Justin Debrincat – gave was the pick-me-up feeling of walking into a friend’s place after long week. And I clearly wasn't the only one feeling that way, at the beginning of the first chord, cheers erupted all around me and pure, joyous smiles lit up everyone's faces.

“There’s an energy in the room, isn’t there?” lead singer Fergus Linacre asked the audience - an understatement if there ever was one.

Linacre performs with a clear passion and genuine love for his audience, giving his all from the opening chords to the final ones, with a flawless voice that can be both powerful and impassioned. In particular, the bond between him and lead guitarist/vocalist Alex Laska was something special to watch. They sparked off each other onstage, their voices harmonising effortlessly and seamlessly, and bantering between songs with a brotherly love that could be felt throughout the crowd.

They riffed off each other as easily during their set list as they did in the brief pauses between songs: “How long have you been doing this?” Linacre asked Laska at one point as the guitarist struggled with (and accidentally broke) a mic stand, to a collective roar of laughter from the crowd.

“Since I was five,” Laska shot back sheepishly.

“Well I’ve been doing this since I was four,” Linacre laughed, and so too did the audience, affected by the excitable and upbeat energy. “But we’re not here for our standup act, we’re here to play some music”.

Kicking off their set with ‘Library Books’, from their most recent album After Hours, Close to Dawn (2017), they set a high bar for themselves that they only continued to best throughout the night. Immediately after this came another highlight in the form of ‘ICFTYDLM’ (I Can Feel That You Don’t Love Me). Linacre grooved around the stage with a tambourine and an effortlessly cool, likeable vibe.

Laska’s talent as a guitarist was particularly flaunted in So Long, during a killer solo that left the audience wide eyed in awe and cheering louder than ever. Featuring another jaw-dropping guitar solo by Laska, ‘Ohio’ was definitely the song the audience was clearly anticipating most excitedly. As soon as the opening chords were struck, they broke into such an enthusiastic chorus that Linacre held the microphone out to them, grinning uncontrollably, letting them take over for the first verse.

Laska’s vocals definitely shone in ‘Big City’, one of the band’s slower songs, inspired by their time spent in Nashville. Slower songs like this really demonstrated the boys’ depth and range: Kingswood don’t set one tone or one pace throughout their show. They prove themselves as more than a one-trick pony, not only capable of rocking out with an immense and infectious energy, but also of sharing intimate, soulful moments with their audience.

Wrapping up the night with ‘Creepin’, Kingswood really shone as an ensemble, ending on a high. Every member performs with such joy and passion that it’s impossible to leave feeling anything less than uplifted and wearing a miles-wide smile. Despite the intimacy of the Oxford Arts Factory, it wasn’t hard to imagine the band filling out a much larger venue with just as much infectious, energetic talent. Joining the likes of the DMAs, Smith St Band, the Rubens and the Preatures, Kingswood are sure to only continue to find more fans and fame in a new age of Australian rock.

Photography Sophie Hill/27 Magazine