The Vandolls @ Bar Broadway,(01/02/2008)

Mon 4th Feb, 2008 in Gig Reviews

It was a hot and sweaty night, Friday night, even before we hit Bar Broadway in Sydney’s southern CBD. Some guy in polo shirt shouted at me as I approached the pub, “Are you here for AutoPilot?” Thinking maybe he was, I don’t know, some official personage, I said yes. “It’s gonna fuckin’ GO OFF!!!” he crowed. Right, I thought. It’s going to be one of THOSE nights. And surely it was.

The crowd was a little thin for starting acts Swamp Woman and Fallen Silver, though the latter act at least deserved a better showing. Fallen Silver give the impression that their older-than-teenage (I’m being kind) members have been playing around the traps for a goodly time, and it really has paid off. This is no-frills bluesy pub rock, well-executed, sung with passion and feeling. The lyrics that I could make above the screaming riffs actually had something meaningful to say, and the absence of posturing served as a nice clean aperitif to the glam monster-rockers to follow.

Third support was a modest (ha!) little local outfit called AutoPilot, who are garnering gigs at an astonishing rate lately. These guys seem to be playing everywhere! I saw them at Candy’s Apartment a couple of months ago, supporting perennial favourites Torche Le Monde, and I was dead impressed by them. Tonight didn’t quite meet that previous incendiary standard (maybe they were feeling the absence of their usual Drum Lord, Jimmy Daldorf, laid low by a troubling illness) but they still rocked the crowd into a frenzy of flying fists and devil’s horns with songs like Step Right Up and Peacemaker. AutoPilot have the looks and the charisma and the chops to make it big – I get a buzz to think what they’ll be capable of once they’ve grown into their GnR-sized glam-rock boots. They’re getting there, but there’s still a little wriggle room in the toes yet.

Headliners The Vandolls took the stage to massive cheers and fist-pumping from the amped-up crowd, and proceeded to give everyone exactly what they’d come for: ballsy, raw, arsey-loud rock – œn’ roll. These guys haven’t been playing out and about all that much but you wouldn’t know it to look at them. Singer Timmy is a raw-voiced screaming banshee with looks reminiscent of a Heartbreakers-era Johnny Thunders, and he works the crowd like he’s been doing it all his life. The songs are, well, classic hard rock. There’s really not much to say there. Between AutoPilot and The Vandolls, you’re not entering ground-breaking territory. This is hard pub rock spliced with glam and a pinch of metal, pumped up to eleven and delivered with a generous sprinkling of “motherfuckers” and lashings of spilled beer. The age of all these guys concerns me a bit – I don’t know whether I can really buy their “bad muthafucka” attitude when they’ve an average age of 19 or so – but then I guess they’ve time on their side, right? Like AutoPilot, The Vandolls have a lot of living to do before they can seriously earn their Slash – œn’ Duff rock stripes. Right now, much as I love the riffs and big crashing drums and kick-arse basslines and howled vocals, I just can’t buy the stories they’re selling me, although I really want to. It all sounds like one hell of a ride. Songs like Freight Train are delivered like a swift kick to the head, followed up by a searing French kiss. These guys are young, sure, but they’re also dead-sexy, talented, and fired-up ready to take on the world.

I’ll happily give – œem time. I want to see AutoPilot and The Vandolls in a decade’s time (I’ll be up the back in my rocking chair) when they’re really the bad asses they purport to be now. Who knows what they’ll be capable of by then – taking over the world, maybe? The planet Earth ruled by brutally loud glam rock bands… yeah, I’d like to see that. That’s definitely worth sticking around for.