If there was one word to sum up this balmy Friday evening in Richmond, it would be distortion. While power outages heated up those forced into the streets of Melbourne, the Corner Hotel had plenty of energy to shoot into electric guitars which were subsequently pushed into amps over the Corner’s two stages. The evening was a split one – two local noise acts, namely Pets With Pets and Deaf Wish on the side stage, along with Laneway artists’ No Age and Jay Reatard on the main stage in an evening which produced buckets of sweat, city comparisons, and a hipster mosh-pit.

As the limited masses strolled into the venue, they were greeted by Melbourne two piece Pets With Pets who were trying to be as loud as they could for an opening act. Z Animaus is draped in a black cloth and slamming his right hand down onto a distorted miniature guitar. He yells unintelligible words into his microphone, coming off like a teething toddler who has learnt a few words and is trying to express that he has pooped into his diper. Left of the stage is drummer Jonno who douses himself in water midsong after complaining about the heat, and explains that he’d be wearing a fancy Indian head-dress if it wasn’t so damn hot. Z Animaus replaces the guitar with a synth on a few tracks and the drum beats pull you in, but loud music doesn’t make up for the one speed the entire set seems to be stuck in.

Fellow locals Deaf Wish appear next on side stage and get started into their set. The songs are on the short side and from the sounds of things lyrics seem to be secondary to the three guitarists who crowd the front of the stage whilst playing their instruments. They take turns contributing vocals but the real star is out the back, beating down on the drums in a hypnotic state. The crowd seem to appreciate it too, cheering for introductions for tracks that consisted of ‘you won’t know this one, we made it two days ago’ or ‘This is the one we released on VHS’. Quality stuff, the lot of it.

Now it was time for the first of two internationals – the first being No Age. Drummer Dean Allen Spunt looked like a character from Saved By The Bell fifteen years on in his knitted check baseball cap and sunglasses and appeared to be upset with the crowd, at least in a passive aggressive way. Spunt seemed hung up on the majority of the crowd who appeared to standing on their hands rather jumping up and down to the earfuls of kick-drum. A few guys down the front have a pushing contest and one lucky punter rolls onto stage and tries to play Randy Randall’s guitar but the highlights of the set don’t exist tonight.

When Jay Reatard took the stage a couple of minutes before midnight it was hard to know what was going to come next, given Jay looking like a baby faced, clean shaven Andrew WK and was holding a black and white Gibson Flying V (which innocently matched the bass played by Stephen Hope ). Over the next half hour, the two trashed their guitars while Billy Hayes beatdown the drums. No time for stoppages, no need for mid-song discussions, Jay would simply yell out a title to each song (or a few random words) and they’d launch straight into the track without regard for anything else. Hope headbangs with Jay, then sprays him with a non-stop stream of sweat while indie kids mosh and jump non-stop. Jay even launches himself into the crowd with a nice stagedive, hitting the Corner’s floor hard and taking down a few people. A few more songs later and Jay and co are propping their instruments against the speaker stacks before leaving, stage left. Curtains close and that’s it – no encore required. It was short, fast and furious but it was as satisfying as a set could get.

CHECK OUT THE PIX OF THE GIG HERE