The Drones, Witch Hats @ ANUBar, Canberra, 30/04/09

Sun 3rd May, 2009 in Gig Reviews

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It’s true. The Drones slam down one of the most intense live rock experiences you can find in this country, and it was a willing posse of bearded men who laid out their ears for the slaughter on Thursday night. Proud graduates of the Nick Cave School For Not Giving A Fuck The Drones are arrogant, patronising, self-important and among other things call their fans c*nts, but these traits only seems to egg on a growing following.

The crowd was patchy when Witch Hats (formerly Tassie, now Melbourne-based) got up for their support set – their demeanour already reflecting time spent on the road with The Drones. Without grabbing any of the crowd by the beards with their music, the four-piece filled the room and if the right single hits Richard Kingsmill’s desk at the right time, one gets the feeling they’ll be all over the radio. They played a bunch of songs from last year’s debut LP Cellulite Soul but it was Fucking With The Atmosphere and Pepper Man, which stuck best.

Fans love it when bands start sets the way they start their albums, so they got very noisy when The Drones kicked off with Nail It Down, the pretty epic opener from 2008’s hallowed Havilah album. Oh My, next, has become a bit of a sing-along and though the audience were feeling part of the action the two figure heads on stage, Gareth Liddiard and Dan Luscombe seemed relieved to see the back of it. As for Fiona Kitschin, it’s hard to know what she’s thinking but it seemed she was sharing similar feelings with her bass amp.

It’s exactly six months since The Drones graced Canberra. Then it was hot; now it is cold; but their lukewarm regard for the place has remained constant. The wounds from the forgettable set at Stonefest 2008 remain, and Liddiard touched on it twice during the show, including a maligned “I didn’t think anyone had heard of us here” after the crowd made just enough noise for an encore.

They thrashed out the majority of Havilah, and drummer Michael Noga made the night of one young disciple, Brendan, when he promised him a night together on the drink. Brendan, so the story goes, quit his job at Maccas because they wouldn’t give him the night off to come to the gig. Noga came good in the encore, sharing a fair-traded Corona with Brendan as endorsement of the young one’s – œstickin it to the man’. The encore itself was smashing, and the now famous cover of Kev Carmody’s River of Tears, carried incredible gravity, namely because the intensity of the lyrics is amplified by the way Liddiard dredges them up.

The Drones seem to have tapped into a latent Aussie music consciousness where ballad meets fury. There’s Neil Young in those guitars and Kurt Cobain in those eyes. If they spend too many more tours looking inwardly the novelty will fade, but for now they deserve all the gushing; fucking c*nts.

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