Does It Offend You, Yeah? @The Tivoli, Brisbane(10/09/2009)

Sun 13th Sep, 2009 in Gig Reviews

I really do love Does It Offend You, Yeah? but Thursday night’s show at the Tivoli was honestly a bit of a let down.

What should have prepared me for a night of let downs was the fact that the support acts were DJs, and pretty darn awful ones at that. The experience could be likened to a school dance where everyone wears fluro and tries to look sexy whilst still avoiding the boy and girl germs. Kids who look like they’ve never even heard of the sun brought us two painful hours of piped music. The highlights – being a few seconds of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and The Lion King – and extreme low points of Jay Z didn’t really go down well for a distinctly indie crowd. In the words of one disgruntled punter, “Their scratching definitely wasn’t up to scratch”. Thankfully, The Tivoli’s lighting show was, as always, awesome and the flashing lights at least hid the DJ’s naked torsos from view.

A mercifully short break later, Does It Offend You, Yeah? hit the stage in a somewhat confused manner. Frontman James Rushent – œs drunken slurs between mouthfuls of beer proclaimed Brisbane as being “the best crowd” and having the “prettiest girls”, which seemed to pacify the more gullible punters. The set soon picked up with the band getting into the swing of things and the crowd slowly warming up to Rushent’s ramblings.

Rushent and friends played a few new songs off their soon to be released album Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, including Heart Attack, because “the label forced us to”. Their set reached the pinnacle of the night with Let’s Make Out seeing a bunch of suspiciously underage looking punters up on stage for a hilarious singalong. Kids tried to make out with band members, guitarist Matt Derham crowd surfed and bassist Chloe Duveaux expertly dodged the kids rushing for her microphone.

Next was the Bill Hughes tribute song Weird Science which saw the crowd go absolutely mental, complete with the robot and even the Macarena making a come back on the dance floor. Even Rushent had to admit that the punters were saving the show from being “one of the most awkward musical experiences experienced by anyone who hasn’t witness ed a Britney Spears show.”

Despite Rushent’s drunken ramblings which at one point threatened to seriously derail the show, the punters really did make the night. If a band can drawn that sort of a response with a completely wasted frontman then one can only imagine how amazing a real show would be. Tonight’s show was a show for the fans, by the fans.

This reviewer lives in hope that one day she’ll witness a Does It Offend You, Yeah? show that lives up to all the hype, but unless they plan on carting Brisbane punters around to all their future shows the band really needs to get their shit together.