Come Together 2 Festival
@ Luna Park, Sydney
Saturday, September 10 2005

BY RICHARD SHARMAN

While battling the hangover that crept up on me following Ian Rilen and the Love Addicts the previous night, a friend called offering me tickets to Come Together.

It took me until about 6pm to get my shit together and then wander down to Luna Park.

First band I saw were The Pictures, the Melbourne outfit put together by You Am I guitarist, Davey Lane. I was pretty impressed, I had heard good reports about them and this was the first time I had seen them, I could see huge dashes of The Faces in their music but with a lot more guitar muscle/abuse/fireworks – definitely worth checking out!

Next up was Epicure – didn’t pay too much attention to them until they did something deserving of a firing squad when they resurrected the god awful Nights in White Satin as a closing cover – seriously what the fuck? That song should remain dead and buried or at least confined to the shits and memories stations.

One of the highlights of the evening for me was the chance to catch The Stems again – last time I saw them was sometime back in the '80s. The faces were a little craggier and the waistlines a little larger but they delivered their sweet sounding '60s inspired garage rock – they haven’t lost a thing and the closing new song “Hellbound Train” rocked along nicely. Dom Mariani’s sizzling Telecaster cut through like a hotwire to the head – very sweet! I hope they are playing some more shows, another one to mark in the black book of bands to see again.

The Cops seemed to try hard and the kids were pretty entertained by them – but they didn’t inspire much feeling from me with the couple of songs I saw from their set.

It was now time to flick the rock switch with the twin guitar attack of The D4 – these boys were in fine form, big killer riffs, nice dirty solos and a mighty fine sound! Highlight was a song that had a burning Stooges style riff before descending into full rock meltdown. The only disappointment for me was the omission of “Rock N Roll Motherfucker” from their set.

As soon as The D4 finished The Casanovas launched into a fiery set combining some new and old tunes, highlights were “Nasty”, a newie that had a riff reminiscent of The Stooges classic “TV Eye” and the closer, their own anthemic “10 Outta 10”.

It was time to escape for a bit of fresh air and miss out on Butterfingers – pretty shitful stuff from what I heard. NuMetal meets shitty Aussie rap – some of the crowd seemed to lap it up, though.

By the time You Am I strode to the stage the Big Top was well filled. It had been some time since I had seen You Am I, they were in fine form too… big sound, big stage show, Rusty’s powerhouse drumming was something to behold and the twin guitars of Davey Lane and Tim Rogers blasted out a great wall of sound. Set highlight for me was “Cathy’s Clown”. Once again, Tim Rogers' talents as both songwriter and showman shone through their set.

All in all a good day – the venue was great, with the harbour, the rides and plenty of space to wander and chill out between bands.

 

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