The Snowdroppers @ Amplifier,Perth (3/11/11)

Mon 7th Nov, 2011 in Gig Reviews

It was a dark, cold, wet Spring Thursday night in November when Sydney-siders The Snowdroppers decided to drop in and pay Perth a little visit. Armed to the teeth with twenty-something of their most avid followers and sidekicks Yokohomos and Hootenanny, the show was something Amplifier wasn’t going to forget in any hurry.

The Yokohomos have one of the best band names ever. Hands down. They’re not gay, they’re not Japanese and no, they didn’t break The Beatles up. As rumour has it, lead singer Oscar Jack’s father gives him jelly beans before every show. So, its no wonder that you will see the man do more flips and kicks in a half hour set than you would in a one hour Richard Simmons aerobic class. Sonically reminiscent of The Birthday Party and just as fucked up, The Yokohomos perform a show that leaves you wanting more.

Hootenanny are two girls who play angry rock music which is kind of funny considering how hysterical they are in between songs. They swap instruments through out the set and have songs titled Fire In My Belly and the self-titled Hootenanny. Traditionally, a hootenanny is an American colloquialism used to describe things whose names were forgotten or unknown. It also means party. From Hootenanny the band, you will not forget their name, even if they do forget their chords or words to songs and have to stop playing half way through to remember what they were supposed to be playing. Yes, this does happen. Quite a lot. And you will definitely get a party.

On The Snowdroppers maiden voyage to Perth, they brought with them 25% of fellow Sydney-siders Gay Paris to fill in on bass. It appears that their actual bass player broke his arm in an arm wrestling competition at the drummer’s birthday party the week before the tour started. After having five days to learn their entire set list, Dean ‘Slim Pickins’ Podmore did a splendid job. If he did screw up at all, it wasn’t noticeable. Not a bad feat!

It’s been two years since The Snowdroppers released Too Late to Pray. In that time, they have toured every corner of the country and have only just started gaining popularity among the masses with Do the Stomp featured on Rage fairly regularly and some very notable festival appearances. It has just been announced that they will appear on the 20th anniversary Wiggles tribute album alongside some of Australia’s biggest bands – Frenzal Rhomb, The Living End, Jebediah and Spiderbait.

At Amplifier, they powered through a tumultuous set of dirty post-blues tracks fronted by their enigmatic lead singer/banjoist/harp player Johnny Wishbone. The amount of grinding and thrusting that boy did left every girl at the venue checking their undies to see how much their ovaries had swooned. Pauly K’s guitar solos were incredible showing off his talent in fine form. Cougar Jones hid behind his drums for most of the set but kept the band in time with his mighty skill.

In between songs, the crowd kept yelling out “Shit fucken yeah” much to Wishbone’s amusement who commanded that it be screamed out in the middle of songs. Wishbone also tried to get people to sing along to Do the Stomp but failed, as most of them didn’t know the words. He also tried to get people to dance, crawling into the crowd and then running around hugging various fans including the goths in the front row during the last song.

The Snowdroppers spend the next few nights touring down and up the WA coast. If you get a chance to see them, do so. For a Thursday night, which is normally a warm up show for most touring bands, The Snowdroppers did not disappoint. In fact, they were awesome. Shit fucken yeah!