Strung Out, The Loved Ones @The Hifi, Melbourne(10/06/2010)

Fri 11th Jun, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Someone once said that ‘listening to Strung Out is akin to having your brain scraped out by a dentists drill’.

Actually, that’s not true, which is a real shame since it would have been a damn fine way to start this article. Veritable quotation or not, it is fair to say that the band’s dual pronged guitar onslaught is quite an intense operation. Having scoured the inside of the skull, they then fill the cavity with the type of euphoric pop-punk ferocity that has bands like Rise Against wetting the bed at night.

On record, the procedure can be fierce. Live, it’s positively brutal. But, like a good enema, Strung Out always leave you enlightened, refreshed and suddenly dealing with a lot less crap.

If Strung Out are the surgeons, then standing in place of the Anaesthetist are Philadelphia ‘populist punks’ The Loved Ones , who turn in a shocking performance in that regard, instead administering just the right dose of gusto and bounce to an ailing audience. Bursting out of Bob Dylan’s Everybody Must Get Stoned , the band launch headlong into an extremely tight set of 3 minute gems that owe as much to Lagwagon and Green Day as they do Against Me.

Lead singer Dave Hause bunny hops his way through a whirlwind romance with the microphone, whipping up the crowd with a yelp reminiscent to that of Less Than Jake’s Chris Demakes. New single Distracted makes an appearance quite early on before the initially warm reception begins to wane, despite the band’s persistent verve. Gladly, they’re intelligent enough to realise the importance of variety in the supporting role and as they traverse the punk-pop genre through NOFX style debauchery to Against Me proto-politik, even dropping in a Bright Eyes cover along the way, the blood pressure in the room begins to rise once more.

Left in a heightened state following the departure of The Loved Ones, the assembled punks and punkettes begin the chant for Strung Out before the drum kit is even fully assembled onstage. The anticipation is palpable, not least around the lighting box where an astute sound technician rightfully points out, “this place stinks like a urinal” – perhaps the wait was too much for someone.

Given the level of expectation surrounding Strung Out’s entrance, their opening number Black Crosses is a little disappointing, considering the fudged lighting miscue and untidy instrument levels that mar the intro. It’s an unfortunate error, but the band recover well enough, delivering a moshpit frenzy as promised when the song hits its crushing middle section riff. The sound is still not entirely in-check when they subsequently launch into old fave Ultimate Devotion, but again face is saved by a note perfect solo and bone-crushing percussion. All that’s required is a little fine tuning and from there, the operation is full steam ahead.

Wisely choosing to stick to the fast-loud-rampant riffage-scorching solo formula that works so well for them on record, the band induce surge after surge of audience adulation with well crafted, precisely recreated guitar mastery. At times, axemen Jake Kiley and Rob Ramos pull off the tricky feat of delivering the sound of about 7 guitars from a mere 2 instruments, as on the raucous Velvet Alley which has fists, hair and plastic cups flying from bar to stage. More often, they perform the emphatically more impressive manoeuvre of playing in such synchronisation that you’d swear there was only one a la The Kids, possibly the best song of the night on the basis of it’s perfect, blistering delivery.

All this is expected, of course, from a band of seasoned professionals. What’s less expected is the level of showmanship that these hardy rebels bring to the show. Never standing still for more than a phrase at a time, it’s like bobbing for apples, trying to locate any one band member at any given time. Bassist Jordan Burns practically requires a leash to stop him from wandering offstage; crisscrossing from left to right in an attempt to thwart every photo opportunity, even when adorning the world’s campest Stetson which is kindly donated by an audience member. More often than not, he’s to be found joining lead singer Jason Cruz on the fringes of the pit, duly leaving the guitarists to take centre stage.

Cruz swoons on and off stage like a platinum talk show host, inviting crowd surfers practically into his face and collecting a well packed joint for his troubles. Dedicating the excellent King Has Left The Building to the late Gary Coleman, his voice may not have the same intransigent bite as it did on American Paradox, say, but in the flesh there is certainly a refreshing humour about him. In revelling the way he does in the adoration of the crowd whilst detailing the finer points of sexual torture, Cruz and Strung Out demonstrate how to put on a show without forsaking musical or ethos-specific integrity.

Deciding to omit the more languid Cemetery from the encore, a slot where it may have created an appropriate change of pace, the band may have disappointed some fans, but they certainly kept to the brief. In and out with surgical precision – save for a minor blip to begin with – Strung Out leave the dehydrated, heaving mass before them with little but welded-on harmonics and Jason Cruz’s silhouette to fill their heads.

CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM THE NIGHT HERE