An evening out to the concert hall is an occasion which typically inspires an expectation of black dresses and bubbly alcohol. Yet the atmosphere present last night at the Melbourne Recital Centre was far more communal and convivial, akin to that of the bustling cheer of a county fair.

This jovial mood was the cheeky doing of the Darebin City Brass Preston Band and their audience-friendly program, inviting spontaneous eruptions of on-the-beat clapping from the crowd as they played.

Guiding the audience through the evening was the band’s musical director and conductor Andrew Snell, offering brief introductions to each work with the welcoming gusto of a circus master.

Darebin City Brass Preston Band at Melbourne Recital Centre.

Ahead of the evening’s main event – a live performance of Julian Nott’s score for Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, with the film projected onscreen at the back of the hall – was a series of short, vibrant works that exercised the full range of the brass band’s technical craft and boisterous verve.

A standout here was the band’s performance of Mr. Lear’s Carnival by W. Hogarth Lear, the mischievous alias of English composer Elgar...