A night full of surprises and some top quality rock. How often can you see a band and say “I have never seen that before?” Well one of the support acts for Gazoonga Attack did just that.  As for Gazoonga Attack, I was hoping for a unique, break through chick-rock experience and all that can be said is, bugger, maybe the album will be better.

The opening act, The High Society played with heart and conviction and a sense of mischief. They had the happiest rock faces I have seen for a long time matched by a strong backbeat and deep, chunky guitar. Add to this their penchant for pointing out their own mistakes and a drummer that openly picks his nose between songs and you’ve got gritty, good time rock. The High Society will be opening for TISM at the Gaelic Club in a few weeks so they seem to be going from strength to strength. The best song of their set was Out On The Streets, it had a punchy urgency that drove the show home.

Melbourne band Digger & The Pussycats followed and blew me away. My experience with two piece bands has always been Roxette covers, high fringes and a drum machine that ensures that ever sound ends exactly the same (big shout out to my step-mum there, love your work!). Digger & The Pussycats was only two men but holy freakin’ moly, they owned that room. The drummer, Andy has a primitive set up and he stands and just beats the crap outta those things while singing back up! The vocalist, Sam also takes care of the lead guitar and moves around the stage like a man possessed. There is no room or need for any more people on that stage. There is also no room on the speakers, hanging from the roof as he was up there too.

Digger & The Pussycats have songs full of fury like Motor Bike and Coming To Get You (You Drive Like A ****), you will just have to go and see them live to find out what expletive completes that song title – angry, angry young men!  Their songs are supremely angry, death-filled, bitter and then the music stops and they are hilarious! They are the first band I have ever heard that was actually genuinely funny between songs rather than tedious or telling in-jokes.  Go and see them, go and see them!

I had high hopes after seeing how great the supports were, the crowd had already surprised me as in was 85% men and I was excited to see the headliners, Gazoonga Attack. Let me say up front, the drummer was sensational, held the whole thing together which proved really hard at times. There were people there who looked like they were really enjoying it. Having said that, they were off key, out of time, muffled, incoherent and really sloppy as a whole. I hate to sledge a band but I can’t lie either. Jimi Hendrix can pull off three chords and the truth, Gazoonga Attack couldn’t. It sounded like one long song, it was cliched and filled with predicable caricatures right down to the interactions with the crowd and each other.

Dirty Sheets wasn’t bad and got a good crowd reaction as it was off an earlier EP but the rest just blended into the song before and the song after. The only time there was a notable change of song was when they stop to look at each other, mumble into the mike, gaze around seductively and Elea makes men in the crowd get her drinks.

The main vocal duty falls to Tamara who has a dirty rock sultriness which works well and I’m sure if she were mixed well, the whole set would not have been the complete write off it was from where I was standing. Their recorded work must be heaps better because there were people dancing and singing a little bit. Perhaps, it was just a really bad night.

For someone who didn’t want to sledge a band I have done a pretty big number on them but and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to review a girl rock band and not mention Skulker or The Breeders and after the event I am wishing that I could. I’m kicking Most Precious Blood off the top of the list and they have held that position convincingly and unchallenged for a really long time.

So go and see the High Society, go and see Digger & The Pussycats ten times and keep Gazoonga Attack in a contrived studio environment. Maybe their new album Sex Nerd is much better?