Kavaliers crack the top off the Mammal gig with a strong start on the side stage. I watch from a new vantage point – my old faithful review spot won’t do for this stage. This in itself sets the whole night up for serendipitous confusion.

I’ve seen Kavaliers play before and they rock. I have oft commented on my penchant for three-piece rock bands and these dudes cement it. Grungey rock at a premium: they go hard. The vocalist shifts from sweet to scream in the turn of a hair while everything throbs around him. Perhaps well timed for the eminent (I hope) genre revival.

Back to my old spot for Jericco; I’m carried on their Eastern-style intro music. It’s a beautifully effective way to set the scene for a set that is interspersed with similar themes, creating music that is mystic, powerful, enveloping, technically inspired.

I am especially taken with the vocalist’s sometime delivery mode. For music that is hard pressed pretending to be gentle, Brent McCormick seems it. He could scream or roar but he carefully, softly, pulls lyrics from a space a foot in front of his face as though he is an ancient storyteller trying to patiently educate. It’s endearing and quite forceful in it’s own way.

I move back to my new post near the side stage and immediately realize my mistake. It’s not the best angle to listen to Lamb Of God-endorsed metallers Sydonia. At first I think it’s just that Jericco did a far superior job. But surely the Sydonia fans can’t be wrong? I scarper back to a better sonic landscape and hear why they have been getting so many metal plaudits. Still, where I was entranced with Jericco, I have managed to break the spell for Sydonia and am not as touched. Maybe, Jericco seemed warmer than Sydonia’s brash sadness.

My old spot is getting pretty bloody crowded at this point and with reluctance, I reunite with my friends at the side stage for Mammal. It proves to be an embarrassing decision. Despite my most objective intentions, I fall for Mammal wholeheartedly and within seconds. The excitement is at fever pitch and I coerce the side stage bouncer into letting me sit quietly on an amp so I can see and write at the same time. The rest is a blur. The anthemic pulse of their music; the frenetic centaur – Zeke Ox – leading the charge, Koori flag sprouting from his microphone; the shining eyes and pumping fists of the audience. I scribble frantically. I glance up and realize everyone is looking at me. This is awkward.

How have I missed Zeke’s arrival on my stage? There he is – a couple of metres away, inciting riot, singing like a powerhouse, getting all jazzed up to the turbulently wicked funk blasting at us from the main stage. Did he jump the crowd? Swing from the mirrorball? It’s hard to say but I slink off the amp and try to squash into a corner fit for a mouse. I wish I was a mouse. But no one cares about me. They are all transfixed with Zeke. Rightly so. He’s transfixing. From there it’s a blur.

At some point I think a guitarist ran through the crowd. Red lights shone on the heads of people yelling, – œHell Yeah!’ I thought about Aboriginal death in custody. I didn’t know any of the songs, but I felt the movement. I understand the desperate comparisons to Rage Against The Machine but Mammal are more exciting cause it feels more like my own voice and sounds like our own concerns. I bought the albums. I want to know the lyrics.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE GIG HERE