Perth’s Grim Fandango kicked off the evening, the bearded quartet’s matter-of-fact demeanour quite a contrast to their poppy punk tunes. File under “Geek Casual”?

Next up, Project Mayhem frontman Ben Watson made good use of the Amplifier’s new stage-front barriers and also successfully demonstrated a number of rock star moves to his home town crowd while not spilling his beer. Already recognised by the Next Big Thing competition, this kind of skilful manoeuvring, along with their big stage presence, could see this band go far.

The Bronx, actually (confusingly?) from Los Angeles, were last in Australia for the Soundwave festival in 2006, where guitarist Joby Ford suffered a pelvis injury in a stage-diving incident yet played out the dates, seated in a wheelchair on stage. Ford was in fine form this evening however, as were new guitarist Ken Horne, new bassist Brad Magers, drummer Jorma Vik, and singer Matt Caughthran, who announced that the band were “ready to party” as they launched into Heart Attack American.

Shitty Future saw a bit of crowd surfing break out, Caughthran advising the packed venue to disregard the barrier and security staff and “come on up”. During They Will Kill Us All (Without Mercy) the frontman dived into the crowd himself, still belting out the song with help from those underneath. On stage, the band were a blur, bassist Magers in particular appearing to be missing a neck.

Playing songs from all three of their self-titled albums, the intensity did not let up – the Bronx do not have any slow songs. Although they did sneak in one or two new songs, these were not from their soon-to-be-released mariarchi album El Bronx – looks like Australia will have to wait for that one.

The show came to an end, but the party did not – with the band scheduled for a 4am flight to Sydney, Caughthran stated that he couldn’t see any point in sleeping. The last minutes of the show saw the band rocking out with History’s Stranglers, a stage full of security staff trying to remove stage-divers not dampening the mood at all. How very punk.