Indie rock night C’mon C’mon’s first birthday party was like many first birthday parties – slightly baffling and oddly un-celebratory. Sure the parents are proud, but at just one year of age the child hasn’t really had time to make many friends of its own. Some friends of the family will turn up to show interest, they’ll have a quick drink, look at the guest of honour, and it’s time to go home. And there will almost certainly be a drunk uncle – or ‘drunkle’ – to liven up affairs

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe the regular C’mon C’mon kids were off chasing even smaller, drunker kids by infiltrating the week’s O Week festivities. Whatever the reason, the attendance was unexpectedly low. The last time I had the honour of seeing the night’s headliners, they filled The Tote to bursting point and had the entire crowd singing along – on a Wednesday night. The Evelyn was to be a far different, less populated affair.

First act to try their hand at launching the party festivities were Like Bears, who played with the enthusiasm of a Wednesday morning rehearsal session. It can’t have helped that they were playing to a near empty room, but they seemed almost embarrassed to be there. Most of their lead vocals were garbled as the singer turned from away the mic; it’s hard to be interested in a band when they seem to be stifling yawns, even if they are trying to show that they’ve listened to the recent crop of indie hype bands.

The crowd swelled to its height for the evening as The Good Intentions took the stage.

The Good Intentions have one great song. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be their only song, as every song they play used the same template. As they launched into that song again and again it became less and less interesting. With all guns blazing they create a racket that rose to a storming peak with their lead singer seeming to be so caught up in their sound that he collapsed into a yelping slew of syllables.

When every song follows the same formula you begin to pay less attention to the song and more attention to the lead singer’s repertoire of rock poses as he flung his guitar like a hula-hoop around his dangerously tight pants. When the band’s tambourine player checks the band’s setlist, it seems as though the band may be about to play something different. But she returned to her mic to tap the tambourine and add an occasional ‘oooh’ – as she does on every song in the Good Intentions playbook. As Mclusky used to sing ‘to hell with good intentions’.

Lead by former Mclusky bassist Jon Chapple, Shooting at Unarmed Men are a stuttering, bludgeoning addition to Melbourne’s rich rock scene. As a lanky figure, Chapple moved with the awkward grace of that other giant of bizarre moves in Australian music – Peter Garrett. Though the Shadow Minister for the Environment never spat out lyrics about ‘concrete AIDS cows’. And yes, Chapple is Welsh but he’s living in Richmond these days so we’ll happily claim him as an Aussie.

The Unarmed Men have a similarly post-punk attack to the tightly wound My Disco, but they are less restrained in their formula. Their attack is powered by Chapple’s vicious ability to fire wild non-sequiters at any target. It’s thrilling act that ran with dangerous intensity, as they never made a safe move. None of Chapple’s lyrics seem to make much sense, but they were all delivered in intensity that left you as fearful as you’re confused.

Bizarrely the crowd had thinned before the Unarmed Men took to the stage but it didn’t stop the evening’s token idiot from jumping on the stage in a display of boundless stupidity. Chapple tried to make the best of it, claiming that he was to Unarmed Men what Bez was to the Happy Mondays. Yet the idiot clambered onstage and fell over near the drum kit, then near the mic stand, then finally falling off the stage. As the band played their final notes, Chapple bounded from the stage to whisper what can only be assumed to be a bitter insult into the ear of the idiot; then he stalked off.

The audience was left to wander off bemused. Hopefully they’ll return to see the Unarmed attack again – they deserve packed Tote nights, not near empty rooms.