T
HE
DRUGS
THE SCRUFFS
@ the Hopetoun Hotel, Sydney
Saturday, March 2 2002
Sometime toward the middle of the afternoon it dawned on me that the big parade for the gay Mardi Gras was tonight, which meant that the usual parking problems and road closures in the vicinity of the Hoey would be trivial compared to the "special event arrangements" (meaning restrictions) in force in that part of town for most of this weekend. No point in trying to take the car into the city then; this was clearly a bus or cab job.
After two buses turned out to be full and failed to stop (unfortunately it seems that I wasn't the only one being sensible and heeding the warnings to take public transport), I flagged down the first passing cab and buckled up for what turned out to be a very interesting ride, one which nearly saw us become part of the parade ourselves when the driver insisted on proceeding with a shortcut that apparently only he could not see was clearly leading us into trouble. On the other hand, our vehicle was far from being the only one trying to "negotiate" road blocks and wheedle their way past incredulous police, whose patience fortunately hadn't yet begun to fray since it was still so early in the evening, instead waving them away with a stern look and an occasional good-natured: "Can't you read the f#$%in' sign you moron?".
Inside the Hoey the crowd was fairly small to begin with, but grew steadily as the night wore on. I don't know if that was simply because of the traffic and parking problems, or if some punters had actually chosen (foolishly, in my opinion) to skip much of the Scruffs' set in order to watch the parade. The only acknowledgement of the world famous gay festival going on in the nearby streets was confined to one woman standing near me, who was wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with: "I'm sorry I missed church. I was busy practising witchcraft and turning into a lesbian", which continued to tickle my sense of humour every time I spied it during the night. Perhaps I'm just easily amused. At the same time, I couldn't help noticing that the Scruff's Matt Galvin had foresworn his "Rock out with your cock out" t-shirt this evening, despite the fact (or maybe because) it could so easily have won him many instant friends on the streets outside.
Since I hadn't had to spend any time trying to find a park, I was amazingly early; so early in fact that the Scruffs hadn't even begun to tune up and were still hanging around the bar, making discreet inroads into the band's drinks rider. When ultimately they did take to the stage, they made an unusually retrained, almost fastidious, start; commencing with "High Rotation" from the "Take A Bath" EP and "Let You Down" from the "Actual Size" album, then introducing a new song ("Not The Driver") from which it was immediately apparent that the next album has more than just an even chance of being at least as good as the current one.
They
still hadn't let themselves off the leash much at that point but, as the set
proceeded, leads managed to unplug themselves, guitar straps slipped and strings
made their need for retuning apparent - chaos beginning to accrete around them
like a gathering avalanche at the top of a steep mountain. Rather than let this
pull them up short, they made whatever running repairs they could as they went
along and rolled with the flow, clearly deciding to ride the escalating avalanche
down the mountainside and leave it to the snow bunnies in the chalets in the
valley below to cope with the consequences or perish in the attempt...
By they time they got to regular set highlight "N Scale" the songs were roaring out of the speakers like a runaway freight train hauling nuclear waste with no brakes and Dennis Hopper in the engineer's set; it was all atomic devastation from then on, once again demonstrating how strong and consistent the "Actual Size" album is, though tonight they also threw in a terrific version "Out Of Reach" from the "Take A Bath" EP towards the end of the set, serving to illustrate why singer and principal songwriter Ryan Ellsmore has said he would like to have another go at recording that song with this current line up. As with the recent Michael Carpenter record launch, they ended their set with the sure fire killers "Trash" and "You Make Me Nervous" to the obvious enjoyment and approval of the audience.
It was a hard act to follow and the Drugs took their sweet time, close to an hour in fact, before making their appearance. While we were waiting, Scruffs' bass player Dan Bell explained to me why the Hoey stage was noticeably wider than usual. When the Scruffs had arrived to set up their gear, they'd found the Drugs' road crew (and some of the Drugs themselves) literally building their own extension to the stage! They'd also added extra lighting, a computer driven video backdrop and the small forest of gum tree branches which now festooned the stage and speaker cabinets, giving it a look that had more than one punter flashing back to Midnight Oil's "Diesel And Dust" tour.
It
appeared that these guys must take their presentation very seriously though
not, as it turned out, in the restrictive sense of being rigid and regimented...
or even particularly precious about their performance. In fact, they seemed
to be having a whale of a time from the moment they finally hit the stage. Despite
the fact that they had eclipsed Rocket Science's record for the "longest
break without obvious cause between band sets at a pub gig" (set here at
this very venue back in September 2000) it was nevertheless such an inventive,
energetic and continually entertaining display that all was forgiven before
they were very far into their set.
Marching up onto the stage in boy scout uniforms, they announced that they were "just back from camp" and proceeded to hit us with a bewildering variety of pop, rock, punk and even a little grunge, peppered with sarcastic topical references including plenty of Archbishop/Governor General paedophile jokes (though they omitted one of my favourites - Q: What did the paedophile pray for at Christmas? A: A new parish). They even had the nerve to perform a techno song and then work the hallowed phrase "kick out the jams" into it. Also, the phrase "fuck off" seemed to turn up in a lot of their material, both spoken and sung...
While I think of it, some of their merit badges did seem to be for achievements in areas where I have considerable difficulty in believing that Lord Baden Powell's approval would have been readily forthcoming. Not only that, their attitude to young women could hardly be said to be in line with the pronouncements of the Scout's Handbook. At one point the singer even suggested to the audience that it's "better dating homeless chicks - after the date you can just drop them off anywhere".
With
any satirical musical group, especially one which goes to such elaborate lengths
in staging and costuming, it's difficult not to start making comparisons to
TISM, but where TISM are into audience baiting, the Drugs are into audience
participation. For example they attempted to achieve a "mirror ball"
effect for one song by enticing a woman up from the audience, then wrapping
her in aluminium foil and exhorting her to "spin around" while they
played. Unfortunately this wasn't quite the success that it might have been
- her mummy-like wrapping prevented her from maintaining a decent speed for
long, while vertigo did the rest...
Not even their own roadies were safe. Every appearance they made on stage to assist with an equipment problem was fraught with the danger of molestation by one or more band members, with the keyboardist even jumping on one roadie's back when he bent down to help fix a foot pedal, riding him into the drum kit in a disturbing cross between "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Deliverance".
However their main target was popular culture, be it Burger King or the Bold and the Beautiful. "This is our number one pop song chorus/We're sure that it will make a million dollars for us" they sang in the encore and even that doesn't turn out to be the case, their kamikaze approach to music should always ensure that their shows are never dull or uneventful. - John McPharlin
