At the last Dirty Disco I felt the King chose a live act that was slightly mismatched to theme of the night – that being lackadaisical Melbourne indie four piece, Oh Mercy. This time I think organisers just about nailed it.

Tito’s regular FKN MIDAS got the grooves going early followed up by Lightsteed who played a string of remakes of old classics like Chilly’s For Your Love and that song from Happy Gilmore that no one can ever remember the name of, otherwise known as The Hey Song by Gary Glitter. The crowd was small but still building and by the time the trio that is The Swiss emerged on stage at midnight the lower area of the East End Bar was filling up.

Being a young band with only a few tracks I was wondering how The Swiss were going to fill the entire one-hour slot. However this never seemed to be a problem as experience would prevail. With Tony Mitolo (live drummer for Empire of the Sun and Pnau) on drums, Sidwho? (of Vote Bowie for President fame) plucking the bass and Luke Million playing three synths simultaneously, The Swiss threw down one of the best live band performances I’ve seen in some time.

Mitolo’s near perfect syncopation on the kit and ability to throw in many a percussive sample from small pads beside him at high speed created a flawless skeleton from which The Swiss could grow. Sidwho? jumped between a microkorg, extra cymbals and drums while mainly adding the crucial bass guitar element to the disco outfit.

At one point half way through the show I leant over to a friend and exclaimed: “How good is this!” He replied with: “Yeah I reckon and that is one of the best facial expressions on a bass player I’ve ever seen!” And he was right. Sidwho? was grooving around the stage like a sleeze in the shadows and he had the creepiest, pouted lips to match, all the while laying down the funk on one of the uglier bass guitars going around. It worked well.

Having minimal vocals, Million was able to create diversity within the tracks via the use of three synthesizers and, most notably, an analog one to add all the necessary bleeps, blops and strange sounds to fill any remotely dull moment. From time to time he would chime in with the vocoder to add that much more depth.

For a three-man band with no pre-recorded samples this was an exceptionally well-performed show. During the whole hour the music stopped a mere total of three times as The Swiss blended Movements I, II and III and Manthem together before closing out the show with the highly acclaimed instrumental Bubblebath. Given their arrangement on stage – in a triangle facing each other – it was as though I was watching a live jam session and it looked as though they were in that mind-set. The boys repeatedly gave each other nods and various other cues to signal direction within the song, smiling and laughing at the same time.

Put simply, I reckon the majority of the crowd at King Tito’s Dirty Disco who witnessed The Swiss were blown away. All my mates I had dragged along agreed this was one of the best live shows they’d seen in a while and, personally, I would go as far to say The Swiss are the best live dance music act in Australia today. No joke.

Also, when you take into consideration their remix credentials of Annie, Headman and Ladyhawke, and those who have remixed them – The Glimmers, Knightlife and German heavyweight Tensnake – it is quite clear this trio from Adelaide are onto something and are definitely a band to watch in the near future.