Saw these cats for the second time in seven months tonight. Last time I caught them at Laneway Festival, and they played late afternoon in a narrow carpark next to a river, and subsequently the sound was pretty ordinary and it just didn't quite get across the way it should have.
Tonight they played at Corner Hotel, my favourite Melbourne venue, small club. And it was fucking great. They shred, they sweat, they belt away at the drums, it's awesome. A lot of crowdsurfing, a couple of dudes ran onto the stage and then jumped back into the crowd (and it was great to see them not get in shit for it), and Brian stagedived later in the set.
Highlights for me were Nights of Wine and Roses, Younger Us, Continuous Thunder, and a couple of tracks I didn't know - loved the guitar work on what I'm guessing was Rockers East Vancouver and this cover they played called To Hell With Good Intentions (part of a two-song "slow part of the show", preceded by Continuous Thunder, "so we can get our breath back before the big finish"). No encore, just played straight through for 90 minutes, which was most welcome. Closed with For the Love of Ivy, probably my least favourite track off Celebration Rock, but the mosh was going off and they interrupted it towards the end to play a bit of Lithium, which the crowd started singing. "How do you know the words to that? We only wrote it a couple of days ago..."
Great gig. Much better than the festival set I saw.