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Although I was looking forward to seeing Grinspoon again, I was expecting a fairly quiet gig on this occasion. The last time I saw them was at The Bridgeway Hotel, which was busy but not completely sold out, even though they were getting a fair bit of airplay on commercial radio at the time. This time playing at HQ, a considerably larger venue on a Tuesday night, with less commercial airplay…I hoped it wouldn’t be too quiet.

Walking into HQ, I was very surprised to find the place absolutely packed to the rafters. I’ve seen a lot of bands play at HQ but it had never seemed so crowded to me.

Support act Calling all Cars were lucky enough to get the full attention and support of the crowd, which isn’t often the case with any support act, regardless of how deserving they may be. Most likely boosted by their recent AC/DC support, the Melbourne trio powered through a solid set of instantly likeable modern rock tunes and kept the attention of the crowd for the duration of their set.

By the time Grinspoon started their set, everybody in the room seemed to have forgotten that it was a Tuesday night. Seemed like a rowdy Saturday night gig to me. My second big surprise of the night came within seconds of Grinspoon hitting the stage. I must have seen this band more than half a dozen times, and something that always seemed odd to me was the way frontman Phil Jamieson seemed to come across as quite nervous. His vocals have always been filled with confidence but there has always been a certain under-confidence about his stage persona to me.

This time, however, Phil and the band all had stage presence to spare. They were on fire for the whole set, delivering new songs from their current album Six to Midnight, including the popular single Comeback, as well as plenty of songs from their back catalogue including the stand-outs Hard Act to Follow, Lost Control, Chemical Heart, Ready 1, and my personal favourite on the night More than you are, from their debut EP.

Although they managed to get through a lot of great songs, it was only an hour into their set that they announced their departure for the night. Looking at my watch, I figured that they would return for an extended encore and play for another half hour at least as it seemed that the night had just begun. As expected, they did play the obligatory encore, however, it was the standard two song encore which only managed to bulk the set up by a further few minutes. When the lights came on, confirming that this was indeed the end of the night, I think there were many more people left wanting more rather than being grateful to get to bed early on a weeknight.

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