The Dandy Warhols @ MetroCity, (28/10/08)

Mon 3rd Nov, 2008 in Gig Reviews

Uneasy and restless, a reunion with such risk attached raised many questions. Had the years of sex and drugs and rock n’ roll have taken a toll on the musical talents of the band? Would the audience receive them with expectant admiration and pleasure as in the past? And what would the set list offer to the diverse audience spatially arranged around Metro’s tiered platforms?

With instruments set up along the stage a half-hour tuning session began, elevating levels of anticipation across the crowd.

Seven albums and countless trips in, The Dandy Warhols strode onto the stage with an unexpected lack of fanfare and launched into their initial instrumentation. Still vague to the band’s arrival the audience slowly swayed to the sounds.

Straight into the second track with little more than a sweeping of hair, We Used to be Friends came through like a bolt, awakening a rhythmic thigh twitching response to Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Peter Holmstrom’s laseresque guitars. Falsettos fueled the first crowd sing along with grungy vocals of Brent DeBoer strengthening the chorus. Shakin’ brought out the leering and sneering contortions across Taylor-Taylor’s face and vocal delivery.

That ego and attitude, so fickle in its portrayal of wicked pleasures through to arrogance is Taylor-Taylor’s distinctive onstage persona. Calling out to the crowd, “it’s been a fucking long time since we’ve been in Australia, and Perth is the most Australia Australia” the gathered wondered if they had just been called bogans but took the sideways compliment all the same.

Anxiety began to dissipate on both sides of the crowd barrier as The Dandy Warhols let down the pretence and offered a big slice of their back catalogue from nasal whines on Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth to the Mark Knopfler guitar guided Love Song to dreamy You Were the Last High and Zia McCabe and Taylor-Taylor’s duet in I Love You.

With a dreamy sequence of mellow electric ramblings incorporating walls of multi-coloured and strobe lights Taylor-Taylor issued a dedication “to all of you who dropped an E about an hour ago, that one was for you”!

Re-firing the pistons and cranking into fifth gear the rocket propelling The Dandy Warhols out into space jangled with every pop blast. All the money or the simple life honey, Bohemian Like You and Get Off gave a refreshing reminder of the undemanding meaning of a mulled life.

Well into the second hour of the show and with only an almost seamless toilet break and towel dry to break up momentum the tracks kept coming. Nothing short of epic, all questions, doubts and anxieties were overturned by the time Godless was performed with mouth trumpets blasting from every crowded platform.

Right to the end the carefree yet irony tinged songs and stage presence of The Dandy Warhols pleased beyond anticipation.