When I walked into the Forum Theatre last night, the first thing I noticed was the choice of clothing. Every second person was wearing bathrobes! I’d been well aware of Marc Rebillet and his brand of humour through his online presence, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the pure silliness in store for me at Marc’s debut Melbourne show. Delayed several times due to the troubles of the last few years, Marc has been waiting a long time to make his first appearance down under and, now that he finally has, he’s commenced his three sold out shows with a brilliant opening night.
Blowing up on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, Marc Rebillet is a musician who specialise in improvisational beatmaking with a comedy angle, ala Reggie Watts, with a distinct Millennial twist. Many of his songs are goofy celebrations or warnings, such as VACCINATED ATTITUDE and YOUR NEW MORNING ALARM
Opening up for Marc was the brilliant Cry Club, a queer pop-punk duo from Wollongong. They dedicated their first song People Like Me to queer rage everywhere, and tore into a set of passionate, dancy rock music.
I was surprised and happy to hear them sneak into a cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s smash-hit Good For You, which was a killer sing-along. The also paid tribute to the goth gods of old, with the track Robert Smith, dedicated to The Cure’s fantastic front man, taking the opportunity, of course, to slander his fallen-from-grace peer Morrissey.
After Cry Club’s short but sweet warmup, the first sight we got of Marc was his face bouncing around the screen behind the stage, like a DVD screensaver from the early 2000s. This immediately set the tone for the whole show, as the crowd would cheer and holler every time the face got close to a corner, only to cry in disappointment when it wasn’t perfect corner. This continued for some time, until we finally achieved nostalgic perfection with a clean hit to the corner, and the screen faded to black. Then the show began.
Marc Rebillet took to the stage. Not to play a song, but to take a moment to bask in the crowd. He immediately began engaging with us, asking if we were ready, jumping into the crowd to get responses on the microphone, hyping us up with his boisterous personality. Then he jumped behind the laptop, and we were treated to possibly the funniest visualiser I have ever seen at a concert.
Marc’s computer screen was displayed on screen, with him entering his lewd but hilarious password, and us being treated to goofy folder names including “definitely not porn” and “beets”, but opening up the tour visuals, only to blow our minds. Cats playing piano, suggestive videos of fruit, turtles fornicating, the whole deal. Marc clearly had one feeling on the mind: horny. And the crowd was right there with him.
Jumping into beat making, Marc layered snares, hats, and percussion for many bars, teasing us before finally punching us in the face with a kickass bass, accompanied by pyrotechnics, pushing the crowd into an immediate up-tempo tech house groove. Mixing one beat into the next, with random stops to say something out of pocket and hilarious, Marc sat perfectly between techno DJ and the kid with too many sugary treats in their lunchbox, the energy built in those first few minutes managed to power a crowd of crazed fans for a full hour and forty minutes.
Mid set, a bra was thrown on stage. Typical display for a rockstar, but being his silly self, Marc was of course obliged to wear it for almost the whole rest of the show. Nothing stumps Marc Rebillet. Taking a moment to speak to a fan in the crowd, the fan responded that Marc was much smaller in person. Such a comment wouldn’t be great on most men’s egos, but this man will use anything for inspiration, so a beat is made using the statement as a key lyric. Nothing stumps Marc Rebillet.
In case it wasn’t already clear, near the end of the show Marc told us that there were no setlists, no plans, and that it was all made up on the spot. Authenticity doesn’t come much closer in live music than this. Ending the show with the hits GIRLS CLUB and FLAMINGO, Marc secured several thousand fans loyalty to the cult of Rebillet, and proved to me that he was more than a meme and in fact a deeply talented, and stupidly hilarious artist.