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Sunday night in Canberra was a good night for unexpected gig lineups, with grunge/stoner throwbacks Regular John supporting FM-lite pop punkers Kisschasy.

Strolling into the ANU at about 8pm, local act Kempsey had just hopped on stage to warm up the seven or so people at the show. Having been to Bluejuice the night before and not seeing the majority of the crowd turn up until about five minutes before their set, it would be wrong to blame this on daylight saving, or Parramatta’s attempt at glory so savagely taken away by one Tony Archer. Maybe the gig going public of Canberra has something better to do than support local talent?

Now that I’ve stopped laughing, let me remind you that Kempsey are worth supporting. While not playing the support act at almost every other show around the traps, they still have a decently honed stage presence that shows their years of smaller shows hasn’t hurt, and did a good job of giving the crowd a taste of the pop rock that would come later.

Unfortunately, Regular John was the next band, and thus most of the – œpop’ was quickly replaced with – œballtearing’ and needless to say, things got awesome. Since having last been in Canberra a few years ago supporting Dinosaur Jr, the band has released the album The Peaceful Atom Is A Bomb, and given the extra energy present in a live setting, the tracks blew the room apart.

The best part of Regular John’s set were the fans, with the front barrier almost full, including some uber-fans singing along to each and every word. Understandably so as well, since it was hard not to get excited about their set (not to mention the bass tone that would make a bikie hard).

Kisschasy came out to what was now a healthy-ish crowd, launching straight into Do Do’s and Wa Oh’s, or however the hell that is spelt. Straight off the bat, the unnerving energy summoned up by Regular John had dissipated completely. The crowd went from being a dangerous and mysterious one, to a crowd more suited to your local Labor Club on a Friday night around 9 pm (old people excluded for the most part), and this was odd since I’m pretty sure it was the same people.

It’s never a good sign when the highlight of a set is seeing the lead singer having his 3/4 full bottle of bourbon taken away by security. Are the bands not safe to use glass anymore? You would think the liquid plus electrical equipment hazard would be a greater worry, but apparently not. The bottle was recovered by a roadie, but didn’t take its place back on stage. Probably good too, as it would suck to have nothing to drink during the riotous Sunday night after party.

Brought out for a three song encore starting with what is becoming a worrying trend of the lead singer doing a solo acoustic and/or semi-acoustic song, the band finished with the popular Spray On Pants and as expected, the crowd left pretty happy.

Unfortunately, what quite a few people missed out on was a support band, hell, bands, who clearly outshone the headliner.

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