Seether, Motormoth @University of NSW Roundhouse, 21/07/2005

Mon 25th Jul, 2005 in Gig Reviews

Seether are so good at what they do! A great night of post-grunge hard rock from Seether, in Australia to support their new album Karma & Effect.

Although the crowd was smaller than deserved due to the next-day exodus to Splendour in the Grass, Splendour’s sideshows and in particularly, the sold-out Queens Of the Stone Age gig the same night, the crowd surged and filled the floor once the boys took the stage.

With only one support act, Motormoth from the Gold Coast attempted to warm the crowd up. The crowd didn’t really get into the Motormoth spirit and I don’t think it was the bands fault. Perhaps not a good match for the audience, their demographic was slightly older and perhaps much drunker. Motormoth came on like a Steel Dragon cover band looking to cut its teeth on Stone Temple Pilots, Steel Pilots if you will. They were full of energy, fun, played a mean guitar but just not right for the night. The lead singer was a James Hetfield disciple and shared the front man’s well-known stance. He belted out the songs, the band delivered but didn’t get back what they put out, I felt for them. It was quite hard to understand the singer during the breaks so the song names alluded me. I’d see them again in a different size venue on a different kind of night.

Seether erupted onto the stage with the opening riff from Disclaimer, the angry Gasoline. It was awesome, the crowd ate it up and say along to every word. It was so loud, brash and passionate. The perfect song to start the album, perfect song to start the show. They followed this with Needles also from album one (and album two as it happens). Burrito was the third song and was from the new album Karma and Effect. Burrito was a rock gem, hard riff driven melancholy with a sweet melody and was followed by Driven Under from the first album, highlighting how well the new material compliments the older stuff. Driven Under was amazing live, there was an incredible solo by Dale Callahan, lead guitarist who is the other founding member of the band. As I looked around the crowd, I was heartened for the band to see the crowd singing the new songs as well as the old. In fact, there were pockets of people who only knew the songs from the new album, others who only knew the first – I’ve never noticed the new versus old school to quite this extreme before particularly for a band with only two distinct albums.

Your Bore was well received by the crowd who were dancing, singing and getting into the show. Because Of Me and Diseased from the new album brought the crowd up in anticipation of their first, and most genuine, big hit Fine Again. Dedicated to Dave William’s from Drowning Pool and Dimebag Darrell, the song was a perfect tribute to fallen rock gods. From the floor, I could hear the people around me singing much louder than Shaun Morgan and it was just fine with me as I love concert karaoke! Fine Again lead into the new single Remedy, which is slightly more radio friendly than most of their tracks but still very solid rock which just sounded like classic Seether and then they did something so admirable… I was looking forward to the Nirvana cover usually present in a Seether show. Having seen Seether in Toronto, I knew how spot on Shaun was with his Cobain mannerisms and how creepy it was, very cool. Instead, as a nod to Australia’s contribution to grunge, they did Silverchair classic Israel’s Son and it was note perfect and delivered with real heart. I felt a bit old as I realised that most of the audience had missed grunge and probably thought Silverchair was retro but they still swayed along as we went into the encore break. Seether came back on stage and did the second unexpected thing for the evening… they thanked their record label and the support of the label people and the support of the fans. You never hear a label thanked, it was refreshing, gracious if not slightly alarming due to the standing perception of the industry: where is the devil on earth hiding if not at a big music label? They launched into Fuck It from the first album and then rounded out a great show with Broken, performed as originally intended, by Shaun and Dale, no Amy and it was really well done. Shaun stood and sung without a guitar, just clutching a beer while Dale sat and accompanied him. It was bittersweet, heartfelt and delivered like it was being sung for the first time and not the millionth. Well worth seeing and I hope they come to town again soon.