The first band up tonight, The Inches take to the stage enthusiastically and immediately get into playing some catchy tunes. The singer/guitarist has an expressive voice to match his sporadic body jerks and movements. The Inches achieve a full, in-your-face sound with good use of the keyboard/organ; at times its solos had as much impact as the guitar’s. The band plays a mix of poppy, new wave-ish tunes and more classic rock driven tunes. The performance as a whole was a little disjointed with the changing styles played, tainted by some sound issues at the start of the set. However, the band has enough energy and enthusiasm to liven up the crowd and impress with their potential and catchy riffs.
The next act and the second Melbourne band of the night, Skybombers are a well dressed, well presented band. These guys have the sound and look from early English blues bands like the Yardbirds. As a whole, the band seems to gel quite nicely and the twin guitars compliment each other excellently. The frontman of the band has an expressive style of singing, ranging from croons to wild screams. While talking to the crowd, the members of Skybombers are quite modest and calm which gives the band a nice down to earth, local feel. Skybombers stick to their early blues rock style quite closely ranging between raucous loud songs to some slower numbers, keeping the set interesting. The band’s enthusiasm warm up the crowd well.
It may have been the build in anticipation, it may have been the turning of the amps up to 11, but when The Answer came on the difference between a good rock band and a great rock band seemed clearer.
The energy and interaction of each of the band members alone immediately impressed the crowd and destroyed any attempts of punters to watch the show with their arms crossed. The Answer almost created too much energy for such a venue. Every time the band paused for a break, the crowd was left not knowing what to do after being so affixed to watching them play. However, after a quick skull of water, The Answer would come back to life and fulfil the void.
There was an immediate obvious difference in talent between the previous acts, especially from the superb ability of guitarist Paul Mahon who spouted amazing blues style solos at any given opportunity. Drummer James Heatley was a dripping wet ball of energy while bassist Michael Waters locked in with Mahon for tight grooves. But it was front man Cormac Neeson who preached into the mic with such spirit and commitment it made his powerful voice all the more driving. Amid his blues rock screams and high pitched bellowing singing voice, Neeson’s honest Irish accent shone through when talking, giving the band a warm humble glow. It was this friendly voice that helped make the crowd leave their “cool” at the door and enjoy themselves.
Each song played by the band was such an extension of the recorded version The Answer’s reputation as a live act is easily verified. As they ripped into the first track for the night, “Come Follow Me”, what was the original mid song break with guitar solo blew out to be a show-off of each of the band member’s abilities. Throughout the night their enjoyment of playing and The Answer’s ability to transform each song kept the crowd on their toes. Playing material mostly from their album ‘Rise’, The Answer also included material from their early EP releases. Songs where filled will bluesy jams, such as the harmonica ‘swamp song’ intro to ‘Be What You Want’ and ‘Never Too Late’. A highlight of the night was the very powerful beauty of the slide guitar based ‘Preachin’ which included Neeson and Mahon slipping into the crowd for a old Memphis style foot stamping thigh slapping preachin circle amongst crowd. The band finished with ‘Into the Gutter’ and an extended instrumental jam before coming back out to perform ‘Under the Sky’ as a massive grand finale.
Spouting The Answer’s influences is a fairly straight forward task. However the band’s pure skill and their absolute passion is what sets them apart from the rest. Seeing this classic rock band in such a small venue after the attention they have received from the British press as well as some of their very famous peers is already a rare treat. How the venue wasn’t packed to the rafters is a mystery. Those lucky enough to attend where able to see a fine specimen of the rock n roll gene in action.
