The crowd at the Palace was an odd one; a mixture of loud obnoxious bogans, freshly eighteen indie kids who have probably never heard of Black Sabbath and quite a large contingent of older music fans who probably love Black Sabbath so much they have an Ozzy tattoo.

But by looks on their faces, they seemed to have no love for Jack Ladder. Only singer/guitarist/name sake Jack Ladder and guitarist/drum machine operator Kirin J Callinan ventured out to this Palace gig, but even just the two of them seemed to be too intimidating for the Wolfmother crowd. Jack Ladder’s sound is both minimalistic (industrial beats courtesy of a drum machine of sorts) and full (post-punk guitars) at the same time. Their sound was almost hypnotic, thanks to the beats that sounded like they belonged in a car factory, repetitive lyrics and ethereal guitar effects. Combined with their strong visual style- a mix of skinny Elvis and seventies porno star – and Kirin’s awesome dancing, Jack Ladder didn’t go down well with the crowd at all. At one point, an overweight VB-drinking loser yelled out, ‘Faggots! Get off stage!’ This reviewer almost felt that he deserved a good kick with her Docs, but decided that bogans are not worth the effort. Kirin seemed to notice the bad vibe and boos coming from the crowd, but instead of stooping to their level his simply blew kisses at them.

Safe to say that Yves Klein Blue were far better received. The floor was still rather empty from Jack Ladder’s set, but the crowd started filling in as soon as the four-piece started playing. Singer and guitarist Michael Tomlinson was the perfect front man, his greaser fashion sense (skinny leg black jeans, black shirt, slicked back hair, leather jacket and a Rickenbacker) fitted their sound, which was a satisfying mix of rock ‘n’ roll and punk. The Brisbane band seems to have grown a rather nice fan base in Melbourne, and it didn’t hurt that the singer mentioned how much better the Palace crowd was than Adelaide. ‘This next song is dedicated to anyone who knows the words of this song,’ Tomlinson said when introducing Getting Wise. ‘But you have to prove it to me.’ He did seem slightly surprised when the crowd sang knew all the words and danced along heartily.

Yves Klein Blue also played an excellent cover of the Stooges’ Search and Destroy, and their set included Dinosaur, Make Up Your Mind, Soldier and Polka. Tomlinson broke a string halfway through their set, and at the closing bars of their set he started ripping off all the strings off his beautiful Rickenbacker. Totally rock star, but let’s hope his guitar is alright in the morning.

Since breaking up in 2008 and then reforming less than a year later with different members, critics have been keeping a close eye on Wolfmother. Any band that reaches such high success riding on only one album are always looked at with suspicion, despite the fact that it is probably just really tight song writing. Touting his newly recruited band mates, founding member and front man Andrew Stockdale must be under a lot of pressure. His performance at the Palace was a little stilted, a tad rehearsed and just a smidgen practiced. It seemed like he had even memorised his between-song banter. His “band” really just looked like carbon copies of him: black tee shirt, blue jeans, slightly fuzzy hair, moderately good looking but not as skinny. They lacked onstage persona – it was almost as if he had chosen minions to make him look good as opposed to play their instruments (but that’s not to say that they didn’t do that well).

Even with the slight awkwardness, Wolfmother are certainly a band that aren’t going away, and hopefully their new Cosmic Egg LP will help that. Naysayers are probably just a little jealous that women start screaming when Stockdale takes his jacket off, a little envious that they can’t get a crowd of people clapping madly at the mere action of waving at the crowd. The four musicians came onstage while Come Together played in the background (one of the punters told his girlfriend that it was an Aerosmith song), and they opened their set with a blistering Dimension, then alternated between old and new songs like White Unicorn, New Moon Rising, crowd favourite Woman, White Feather, Mind’s Eye, 10,000 Feet and Colossal.

Stockdale seemed to relax a little during their encore, and spent a large portion of it sliding around the Palace stage on his leather brogues in much the same way as a kid with an empty trolley hurtles down supermarket aisles when his mum is choosing butter. Wolfmother ended their set with Joker & The Thief, which proved exactly how much their fans loved them and questioned the structural integrity of the Palace when the balcony started feeling a little unsteady.