Fridays in Sydney are always a logistical and moral struggle – in terms of being spoilt for musical choice, that is. But the 28th was particularly rough. Blank Realm playing the Square, Wave Racer at the Civic, Ernest Ellis and Machine Translations at Brighton Up, and the list went on. But then there was the obvious choice: Palmarama!
Finally, the marriage of The Gooch Palms and Palms had come to fruition, and the debut night of the tour began at the Oxford Art Factory.
To warm up the evening was Nathan Roche. The singer-songwriter seems to play in and around Sydney all the time, supporting his debut album Watch It Wharf – and every time he plays, the set gets tighter and tighter, and the music becomes more realised. With the full band in tow, songs like ‘You Are What You Are’ take on the energy of the average Jim Carrey performance.
After Roche added tinder to the hump of logs that was the Palmarama lineup, Canberra’s The Fighting League took the stage to set it alight. That’s actually an understatement – they burnt down the house, and started a bushfire.
By the third song, it became clear that this performance would be one of debaucherous exhilaration. Frontman Dominic Death was a whirlwind of swearing, crotch-grabbing, and name-dropping of Canberra. Between the unzipping of jeans, nipple grabbing, and claiming that “the best thing about arriving in Sydney is leaving”, the five-piece managed to drop bombs of tropical punk glory like ‘Sad Sad Sad Mum And Dad’ and ‘Guys You Want to Be’.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that no one could top a performance like the Black Lips-esque drama of The Fighting League. But then one is reminded of what entertainment incarnate looks like via Newcastle’s The Gooch Palms.
Leroy Macqueen and Kat Friend are only two, but they fill out the stage with enough energy, enthusiasm, and rough-cut garage punk to make a Ramones concert look like a musical guest-spot on Ellen DeGeneres. In matching brightly-coloured tops and tights, the duo blasted through songs off their debut albums and previous EPs like inciting a riot was the name of the game.
For songs such as ‘Watch This Space’ and ‘Hunter Street Mall’, mosh warfare was incited, with the front section of the Oxford Arts turning into an orgy of sweaty, smiling bodies. However, because the group epitomise non-stop happiness, ballads like ‘Don’t Cry’ and ‘You’ were interjected into the set to ensure that the crowd was well and truly in Bon Jovi-ballad mood. Hands clumped around strangers, howling into the rafters – this is just one of the legacies of Newcastle’s finest.
After the one-two knockout of ‘We Get By’ and ‘Novo’s’, Leroy took his kit off and gave the audience the traditional show of Gooch Palms full-frontal nudity.
Finally, because it wouldn’t be Palmarama without a performance from the other titular namesakes, Sydney stalwarts Palms took to the stage to put on one of the best performances of their career.
What ensued in the following 45 minutes was a gut-punch of fantastically anthemic, scrappy garage-pop. Songs like ‘Love’ and ‘The Summer Is Done With Us’ wouldn’t be out of place in a mid-career Replacements set.
It was not hard to see why the crowd was a swarming mess of adoring bodies. On stage, frontman Al Grigg’s head was in nonstop head banging motion, only taking breaks to belt out his heart-melting choruses. Dion Ford on guitar is a shredder capable of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fame. He caresses the stage with all the subtlety of Bon Scott, diving and careening with guitar in hand, lapping up the crowd’s hungry yelps like the dogs on his puppy t-shirt.
After what felt like way too short of a time on stage, Palms finish with a bombastic ‘This Last Year’, inciting multiple stage invasions and ensuring that every pair of hands were up in the air in unreserved admiration. As Beastie Boys prophetical ‘Fight For Your Right’ resounded over the speakers, all those leaving were of the mind that they earnt that right. MCA would be proud to know that such a mindblowing and thematically faithful performance preceded his song.
