Red Ink @ The Corner Hotel,Melbourne (20/05/2011)

Mon 23rd May, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Red Ink are a peculiar Australian band. They have a bit too much pop for the ‘indie’ saturated Triple J, and not quite enough to compete with acts like Faker on the mainstream pop stations (although their single Battle Scars has got the occasional spin on Nova). Fortunately, this has not curbed their ability to draw a crowd.

Opening their single-launching set with Catching a Killer, from last year’s eponymous EP, the band had established before the first chorus just how they’ve been able to amass such a following without the support of local radio stations; they’re quite simply natural showmen.

Front man John Jakubenko is a hurricane. Appearing on stage shirtless and covered in red body paint, Jakubenko simply didn’t relent throughout the band’s hour long set. He’s somewhere between Mick Jagger and Peter Garret; pouting, kicking, and thrashing around the stage, embracing all kinds of madness.

At times it seemed he wasn’t so much a slave to the microphone, rather appearing as if he was trying to seduce it. Another moment of lunacy saw the front man try to break apart the air as if it were a tangible object. When that failed, he took to a Red Ink sign that accompanied the band on the stage.

The crowd alternated between dancing and moshing several times throughout the set, sometimes getting it wrong to Jakubenko’s amusement: “This is a love song, not a hate song.”

The set included a few new tracks (one of which was only written the previous week) from the band’s forthcoming album. Red Ink kept a consistent pace throughout the gig; Jakubenko slurring through the lyrics (as was the case with the radio-friendly Battle Scars) in a manner that suggests the group could have just as easily found a home in the English new wave scene of the 80s.

What My Friends Say, the single the band were launching, is a pop number that was received well by the audience, but perhaps didn’t quite get the attention one would expect from this type of gig. Jakubenko nonethelesscontinued to sweat off the body paint as the set progressed. It almost acted like an hour glass to which the fans could see how much longer the gig had left.

Towards the end of the gig, the indecisive crowd settled with something more reminiscent of a mosh; surfers were propelled into the air, one of whom nearly lost his t-shirt due to a bizarrely motivated punter.

With Going Insane and Audrey, the crowd had not only embraced Jakubenko’s madness, they seemed to have taken a few tips from it. The set closed with Antidote, another track of the Catching a Killer EP. It provided an apt close to the night, but it was unable to create the intensity and fervour of some songs that came before it.

Red Ink left the stage shortly after, with Jakubenko presumably passing out from exhaustion the second he exited the crowd’s view.