Something was in the air Saturday and sure wasn’t love. There must be something of the humid temperature in bringing out the unusual because like a full moon there was plenty of it going around. The Espy is its usual bogan loving self with tonight drawing throngs of bandana wearing, VB drinking man-children.

The first band in the Gershwin room was Six Shooter who remind me of every 17 year olds hard rock garage band with boundless enthusiasm and dreams of world domination. Not that they are offensive to the ears, just a tad stuck in their ways. Which is fine if like most of the audience is drunk out their brains and happy when the extent of variation is two singers. Six Shooter play to this and their subtly is lost on no one, “This songs about fucking, it’s called I Wanna Get to Know You From the Inside.”

The next band Mammoth Mammoth have been talked up riotously by various members of the street press and entertainment publications. So I have some expectation that they must surely hold some virtue. Unfortunately this idea is kicked in the teeth within minutes. Again staple hard rock is trounced around this time in an even less interesting fashion than Six Shooter. The guitarist plays repetitive bar chords on ridiculous looking V guitar while the bass player looks so dazed he’s either totally out of it or completely stoned. Meanwhile when I look at the drummer, who is admittedly the strongest musician of the group, I can’t help thinking of Igor. All this would be tolerable if it weren’t for the vocalist “singing” or more accurately shouting a whole lot whilst beating himself and the equipment up. By the end of the show his shirt is gone and he is covered in sweat, if only he had put some of that exertion towards the music. If nothing else Mammoth Mammoth were entertaining to watch merely for the dancers who all wear matching hoodies and boxing gloves.

A quick food dash between bands results in a frisking from St Kilda’s police for no better reason than being under 25 and it seems as though the night’s a total bust, so it’s with no little relief that Electric Mary they are all exceptionally good musicians. Singer Rusty looks like Lemmy, with his cowboy hat and shirt and aviators, but his voice is more on par with Robert Plant. This is a big deal after the first two acts seeing a band as fully committed to the music as the stage show is a godsend. The band launch the debut album in style with standouts being Let Me Out and No One Does it Better Than Me. Now they are neither the most original band ever and are unlikely to go on to global success however they play rock as it was meant to be, old school, pulling from Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Free as loosely and openly as possible.

So the night ends on a high – though my plus one gets a seventy dollar parking fine trouncing his idea of a free gig. Damn those humid nights.