Arriving at the Metro Theatre on a rainy Easter Monday, my knowledge of the Alabama 3 was, admittedly, limited. Aside from knowing they were behind among the greatest theme songs of all time, they also had incredibly overzealous names. Rock Freebase? The Mountain of Love? The Spirit? And with a description that proclaimed they were “acid-house-country” it all felt very Wolfmother – all seriousness in a musical world that’s screaming tongue-in-cheek.

Likewise, the audience looked like they talk the figurative wrong turn at Albuquerque. All cowboy shirts and Blundstones, there’s something strange in seeing a crowd more suited for the Bathurst Line Dancing Tournament (in every sense) filling out a mid-city concert hall. It’s a crowd that didn’t give supports the Gun Street Girls any favours, and rightfully so. Continuing with the locale analogies, this three-piece probably honed their skills at Kogarah RSL, raised on a nutritious diet of Noiseworks, Cold Chisel and other “pub rock” staples.

The obvious issue here isn’t just the musical mismatch they present to the night’s proceedings, yet that they’re incredibly bad at being incredibly bad. They’ve taken a dated genre that was hardly that imaginative or good to begin with and simply rewritten what they could remember. Add to this their knack of patronising the audience whenever they could (Rainy Sydney, Sunny Melbourne!) and there really isn’t much to like among their short set.

With such a mixed night so far, it’s almost appropriate for the Alabama 3 to open proceedings with Monday Don’t Mean Anything. And, at this moment, you’re floored by their live presence. Their stage presence alone transforms each strange aspect of the night into one seamless piece. Blending equal parts Johnny Cash, Oasis and The KLF, they get the audience into a singing, dancing, chanting ho’ down. And as the audience raises their arms in unison during Mao Tse Tung Said and chants “Hello!” at the end of the main set, you can see the enjoyment and love this incredibly tight band has.

Lead singers Larry Love and Devlin Love are sublime. The former is a demonstration of what Nick Cave would have been if he had grown up under a ten-gallon hat, while the latter is a petite princess and an obvious graduate of the Cyndi Lauper School of Country Divas. But it’s The Very Reverend D. Wayne Love who steals the show. With a physical presence as ludicrously demanding and strong as his assumed name, he exists for two reasons: As the spoken word artist and to belittle the audience. As you watch him throw and step on a pair of bunny ears and proclaim that the night was for grooving, you are immediately transfixed.

It’s upon seeing their live performance that everything about the band – the ludicrous aesthetics, the fake accents, the overcrowding of band members on-stage, the silly names, songs that borrow from the American South when they’re all from Brixton – comes into context. So much could have gone wrong with the Alabama 3, but nothing ever does. Bands who aspire to emulate the times of yesteryear, take note – the Alabama 3 are doing it right.