Robinson Pavillion is indisputably the worst venue for sound quality in Perth.

But this is Perth, and there’s nowhere else to stage an all ages show in the middle of the week, so it’s shut up and put up with the reverberation off the sides of the tin shed and the sound getting tossed away down its rectangular structure. Within ten metres of the stage it’s a different story though, and this was a punk gig, so that’s where you should have been anyway.. forget the bar piss head! Actually stay there, Bowling for Soup are on.

This band was bad. They are saved by the fact that they don’t take themselves too seriously though, so in this regard they are watchable, listenable though? On second thoughts, they’re not even watchable. No one wants to see Jabba the Hut on guitar attempting to dance like Elvis. No one wants to hear him ask “Who’s having sex with me tonight?” to a crowd of 14 year olds either. Anyway they played a soundtrack worthy of a B grade teen movie: 1985, High School Never Ends and… some others. Brilliant just brilliant.

Pending the arrival of actual punk music, Old school punk music, the bar lost a few and the stage gained a few. The Vandals were sick before the term sick meant anything other than an excuse to stay home from school. Tonight they had drummer, Brooks Wackerman, filling in from Bad Religion. The set was tight and cried out with the lost sounds of skate punk, and even featured a cover of America: Fuck Yeah!

At one stage during the set, some psycho could even be seen swinging from the rafters and a second glance revealed the guitarist, Warren Fitzgerald. As one of the original Californian punk bands, it was a privilege to witness their live show, but it was wasted on the half of the audience only there to see Bowling for Soup and Sum 41. Actually, they were probably wasted too, on the free booze back stage.

After getting all nostalgic with The Vandals it was time for another teen band to take the stage: Sum 41. They were worshiped by the teens and met with skepticism by the purists. They raised a big fat middle finger to the skeptics though, and played a solid hour of mainstream punk that didn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s fair to say that Sum 41 continued where Blink 182 left off, as far as catchy riffs and radio friendly melodies are concerned, and they’ve been around long enough now to have developd their own distinctive sound.

Frontman, Deryck Whibley had the young crowd eating out of the palm of his hand as they fired through massive hits such as Still Waiting and The Hell Song. The inclusion of older track, Makes No Difference, made it about as complete as sets come, and as they finished with the 2002 summer money-maker, Fat Lip, they dared anyone to question their worthiness as one of the biggest power punk bands on the planet.

There are the entry/exit, disposable punk bands of the 21st century, and then there are bands like Pennywise. It has been a decade since Aussies last had the chance to hear their anthemic brand of 90’s punk -the way it’s meant to be heard: live and fuckin’ loud!

The crowd was like an army during the set, their war cry carrying the the chorus’ through the roof. Pennywise need to be heard and experienced this way, and fortunately a few hundred Perth punks can now say they have. They played some vintage tracks like Pennywise and Perfect People blended with some newer tracks; Straight Ahead and Fuck Authority. Their cover of Men at Work’s, Land Down Under, which they have almost made their own these days, had the crowd chanting as did their cover of Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown. It’s a shame Henry Rollins didn’t stay behind a couple of days to hear it.

But it was Bro Hymn that had every mosh-damaged spine in Robinson Pavilion tingling with adrenalin. Buzz Killington couldn’t have killed the buzz in that shed, as the seminal guitar riff raised the hair on everyone’s necks. A timeless punk song played by a timeless punk band.

It’s a pain in the arse to go to a punk gig on a Wednesday night, but that’s just how we roll here in Perth. We thrive on a subtle ringing in our ears drowning out whatever authoritative figure we have to deal with the next day, and live for the spontaneous cramps our recovering bodies deal out. The more it hurts the next day, the better the show was, and there would have been some struggling figures on Thursday after Pennywise.