Returning for their fifth night of the Retrospective tour in Brisbane, The Living End was out this time to rock the crowd with the hit spawning White Noise album.
With the big pair of debut self-titled nights knocked out the two nights before, it was time for fans of the later material to strut their stuff down Brisbane’s Ann Street to the Zoo.
Starting the night off again is DJ Hamish Rosser of Vines/Wolfmother fame playing his collection of classic rock and some more recent hits that keep the crowd singing along.
The main support slot of the night changes from the previous support slot from The Medics, to the one man blues and rock sounds of Ash Grunwald.
Stepping onto the stage armed only with a stool and a guitar, Grunwald gets stuck straight into his set and very quickly catches people’s interest and has them dancing.
Starting his set with a medley of old and new, the troubadour provides a sound like a one-man White Stripes: so very powerful.
The bluesy licks and impeccable slide guitar, joined with the perfectly timed beats on the kick drum, all from just one very talented individual is a pleasure to witness.
With the change of guitars to a Les Paul is a story about how Grunwald originally did not want one as he did not think it would suit him, but then he played just a single string and realised how badass it actually sounded.
After “Love Me” Grunwald pulls out a pad to loop some drums sounds so that he break into “Breakout” with some raw energy and emotion.
Playing through “Fish Out Of Water” and keeping the banter with the crowd coming, Grunwald then starts “Serious” like some kind of crazed hillbilly. A Tom Waits cover and a “North Mississippi thing” close his set out before he wanders off stage.
After just a short wait it is yet again time for the band that everyone is here to see to take the stage.
As a video about the history of the band and tonight’s featured album plays, the excitement levels build, until eventually the band come out and without any delay smash straight into “How Do We Know”.
As one of the best opening tracks the band have come up with, containing possibly one of the coolest riffs in modern Australian rock ‘n’ roll, this track gets everyone fired up and ready for the onslaught of hits spawned from the album; such as “Raise The Alarm”, “White Noise” and “Moment In The Sun”, all in that consecutive order.
The rest of the album gets played out with the same sheer ferocity and energy that the band delivers at all their shows and keeps the audience jumping and sweaty for the duration of the concert.
Even though they have now played 25 gigs already for the Retrospective Tour, something very special has happened at tonight’s show… Chris Cheney has broken his first string of the tour.
But not even this technical mishap could not stop the band from doing what they do best – wrapping up yet another stop on their tour in great style.
