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Adelaide where the bloody hell were you?

Three decent Aussie bands, check. Not raining, check. Uni holidays, check. Almost the weekend, check. Free gig, CHECK!! However with all this combined Adelaide seemed to not bother coming out; was it because people thought they wouldn’t get into this Triple J organised free gig, or was it just sheer laziness?

Getting to the venue at 6:50pm for a 7pm start I was shocked to see just a scattering of people in the room, had I got the time wrong…? Maybe or maybe Triple J decided to allow more people to rock up so by the time Triple J host Vijay Khurana took to the stage an hour and a half later to introduce the evening the room had filled up a little more but was still only at about half capacity.

Melbournians Calling All Cars were first up, these guys have been touring solidly, most recently supporting Cog on their national tour. These guys are nothing if not dedicated, having only finished recording at 6am before heading to Adelaide, yet with minimal or perhaps no sleep these 3 strapping lads put on a high energy set.

Haydn exhibits loud raw vocals and works the stage with vigour. Despite all this the crowd for the most part was quite subdued, just a few bopping heads, it wasn’t until Hey You that people started to pick up. Perhaps this added to Haydn’s amusement and genuine surprise during Not Like Anyone when he was able to just step back and let the crowd take over vocals. They put in a solid set before finally finishing with Animal.

The time between sets was long and drawn out losing any energy that the bands may have been able to muster up. Some lackey decided to post the free merchandise/ prizes for tonight so instead of the crowd getting the goods, there is one lucky Australia Post employee who is the proud owner of 100 Triple J Tees.

Next up were The Scare. Having just been in town on Wolf and Cub’s headlining touring I would expect that some of the audience would be familiar with their stuff. Promoting new album Oozevoodoo they have a crazed indie rock sound. Front man Kiss Reid is basically a maniac throwing himself around the stage under a mess of hair often making contact with other band members or the audience. However Adelaide was borderline rude and your could see the disappointment and frustration grow as their performance continued. Reid tried clapping, crowd participation and even jumped into the audience and danced around but got nothing, nothing at all but vacant stares from Adelaide. Finally referring to us as “Badelaide” which I am sure did them no favours but they were completely within their rights. Hitting the mark with As He Walks, Could Be Bad and probably their biggest hit No Money, I’m sure they left the stage feeling dissatisfied.

By the time Wolf and Cub hit the stage I was beginning to feel disillusioned by the night. But these home grown heroes exploded onto the little Gov stage with all the tenacity required for tonight. Wolf and Cub have a loud frantic sound consisting of extended psychedelic jam sessions rich with distorted riffs and drowning bass. Joel Byrne’s vocals are strong and connected, but what makes it is the duel drumming of long time skins man Joel Carey and new addition Marvin Hammond. Hammond occasionally picked up the Sax, to enrich the Wolf and Cub sound – there just isn’t enough saxophone in today’s tunes! Seven Sevens was particularly good, and encore Vessels saw the boys joined by some of The Scare members.

In theory this should have been a quality night of music, the bands were from different genres but professional and tight musicians, but it was the atmosphere of the night that let it down. Which begs to question that when this plays live on Triple J will they have to add some false applause and hoopla to make it sound like it was a full house with an appreciative crowd?

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