It’s Saturday night and the stage is set in front of the giant, red-velvet curtain at Jive; the preparations made to welcome Melbourne’s “laureates of low-grade Australian rock” Root! to Adelaide.

Opening for Root! was the sole support, Jimmy & The Mirrors. With some strong overtones of The Kings of Leon, Jimmy & The Mirrors played a tight, solid set – it is music to dance to, shame no one was dancing and too few were watching. Such is the life of a support act.

The stage at Jive was extended to make more room for Root! to work their, what can be loosely termed, magic. Singer, DC Root, comments of the extension, “It decreases your comfort zone but it increases mine.” Root! are DC Root, Henri Root, Doug Lee Root, Steve Root and Barnaby Root. They took the stage to a piece of spoken word being played over the sound system. This is clearly a piece of their own – strangely reminiscent of the spoken word pieces of TISM, from days gone by. DC Root chides the crowd for living in the kind of town where there is “two Dan Murphys, lowest liquor prices guaranteed”. Though he did not forget the thank the crowd, “Thank you for coming out when it could be shit; it could still be shit.”

Root! are formed where pop culture meets counter culture with, perhaps, a portion of yob culture thrown in. They walk a fine line and walk it hard. Ostensibly, based on their embroidered shirts and hats, Root! play country music. In reality they play a mix of country, pub-rock and spoken word. Their songs and spoken word range over topics from some poor sap falling in love with the check out chick, “Danni from Dan Murphys” to wanting to be more like Tex Perkins, “he’s every sun-kissed, aussie girls favourite kind of shady”. Lyrics steeped in vitriol and unconfined political correctness.

DC Root is a seasoned performer. He knows how to work a crowd, never being afraid to wander among the great unwashed, singing the entire time, never missing a word. At the end of one of these songs, he even falls to his knees, prostrate, seemingly for emphasis. The more the night progressed, the more relaxed DC Root became; he relaxed into interacting with the crowd, clearly a well practiced skill. Occasionally contemptuous, DC Root does exactly what he needs to to get the job done no matter what the crowd from him he only provides what they need with a twist of what amuses him if him alone.

Root! put on a proper show in all aspects: they play good music, entertain and interact. Make sure you see them the very next chance you get.