There are very few things one misses about high school. Bad skin, bad hair and having to beg older kids to buy you beer all sucked. However if you ask anyone what they actually missed about high school nine times out of ten they will say house parties. For those lucky enough to scramble for tickets to the sold out DZ Deathrays gig at the Tote, it was a trip way back down memory lane to one of the messiest and indeed loudest parties seen for a long, long time.
Setting the volume to loud, Udays Tiger start off the long night with frenetic garage punk. The duo lure in the early arrivers who stand dead still in stark contrast with the onstage craziness. Their calm before the storm banter lulls those in attendance into a false sense of security before knocking everyone down one by one. In comparison to the other bands on the bill, they keep in short and sweet and let their feral sonic attack speak for them rather than slurred words. Having gigged relentlessly of late, Udays Tiger provides a perfect opener to a night of beer drenched debauchery and an embarrassment of rich local talent.
The following sounds of Them9’s prove to be a curious addition to the line-up. While they can more than hold their own with their at times 50’s-ish sounding rock n roll, how they fit in amongst some of the most intense and entertaining bands on the live scene at the moment is somewhat of a mystery. Them9’s put on a solid set regardless of whether you know why they are there or not.
Velociraptor spills on to the stage like so many of your younger brother’s mates after a night of goon of fortune. Clearly the band have been enjoying the Tote’s hospitality but manage to make it work for them as they run around, crazy and semi incoherent as always but charmingly so. Sounding like the Ramones dry humping everything good about 60s rock with the energy of The Hives (in a way that sees the crowd begging for more), they occasionally stop to break into “God Gave Rock n Roll To You” and introduce themselves as DZ Deathrays before launching into vicious renditions of crowd favourites “Sleep With The Fishes”, “Hey Suzanne” and “Cynthia”. While every lyric isn’t exactly decipherable, their hooks and “oh yeahs” keep everyone moving and produce the first mosh/crowd surf of the night. As they get sweatier and crazier with each song, you quickly realise you could never get sick of watching them as every show is totally different. They blow kisses, beat the hell out of their instruments and make this writer thankful that there is still joy to be found in rock n roll.
Before they even materialise in a haze of smoke, the crowd chants “DZ”, in fact the crowd ends up chanting “DZ” between almost every single song during their evilly frenzied set. The normally fairly chilled Tote is transformed into a beer spilling, bone breaking, dirty whirl of a mosh which mows its way through everything in its path as the intro to Bloodstreams floods the room. Having delivered an early favourite for release of 2012 in Bloodstreams, hearing it live was always going to be good as suspected but hearing it live while random body parts and glasses fly past your ears is even better. So good that even the minor issue of the P.A shitting itself midway through their set makes no real difference at all, the crowd simply takes over from Shane Parsons on lead vocals and let him concentrate on shredding his guitar into submission and letting him and drummer Simon Ridley to intermittently hurl themselves into the ocean of sweaty punters. Sticking close to their new album when it comes to set list selection, they manage to tear the crowd a new asshole with a frantic if vocally challenged attack on new single ‘Dollar Chills’.
Cellophane eyed skull masks are tossed into the audience with the idea that they will make the blinding strobes even more effective; unfortunately they are mostly mashed into the ground or torn apart by all too eager punters before they really get to serve their purpose.
Despite the P.A seeming to commit suicide rather than be abused at this rate, everything about DZ Deathrays set grabs you firmly by the throat and throttles you into submission, in fact the only complaint this writer has is the omission of “Dumb It Down” from their set.
If you weren’t at this show, you need to take a long hard look at yourself. You may have just missed the best house party that never was.
– Madison Thomas
