BEASTS OF BOURBON +
THE PAINKILLERS
Metropolis, Fremantle
May 28, 2006
By SWAMPLAND
It was a cold and potentially wet Sunday night in Fremantle when I ventured out to see the Beasts of Bourbon at Metropolis.
The night started well with my first live exposure to The Painkillers, James Baker’s latest band. Drum and acoustic guitar put to good effect, and I look forward to seeing them again in perhaps a more intimate venue.
Next up, Freo faves, The Kill Devil Hills. A great show from KDH, the six-piece filling the stage easily and their music doing likewise to the ether. Some new songs and some oldies, with "Drinking Too Much" a crowd pleaser and the unrecorded "Nasty Business" closing an enjoyable and energetic set.
(An aside: What was the venue thinking, playing the bass’n’drum shit, canned music after this great set and before the Beasts? Almost as silly as the Egyptian dancing the security bozos seem to affect. This was a constant reminder of why I don’t like the larger venues in Perth. Here endeth the rant)
Beasts Time
The boys are back – after a short but sweet set at the Big Day Out (Note to promoters – these guy’s should have been on the major stage!!!).
Tex in jeans and a black singlet, Spencer ‘Superfly’ Jones with his leather hat, Brian Hooper looking even more skinnier that last time I saw him (great to see him making it onstage without the walking stick), Charlie Owen his normal reserved self and Tony Pola quickly taking his place behind the drums.
They launched into "Just Right", Tex quickly transforming into the sex god that he is, and Spencer beginning a strange taunting pose behind the back of a security guard, looking like a white Curtis Mayfield. Brian Hooper and Tony Pola combined to produce a monstrous bass rumble and Charlie was providing flourishes over the top. "Low Road" and "Chase The Dragon" followed before we got some words of recognition from Tex.
From here, we got a brutal working of "Make Em Cry", a solid "Bad Revisited", and a blues fusion "Driver Man".
"Saturated", a live favourite was unleashed, before the riot act was read via "Straight, Hard and Long", with the band working up a lather in the process.
Some more banter regarding someone who was buried down the road - which could mean only one thing: The AC/DC cover "Ride On", complete with audience vocals. Bon Scott would have been proud to hear his song raising the roof in Fremantle, performed by perhaps one of Australia’s greatest super groups.
Joined on stage by a somewhat worse-for-the wear James Baker, a shambolic "Dropout" careered like a train hellbent on a wreck. The love shown, on and off the stage, for one of Perth’s living musical legends was moving.
"Is That Love" was followed by a throat-shredding "Hard For You", a song so full of venom that you could put scales on it and call it a snake!!! The band rolled off stage and the applause, foot stamping and shouts for more went up.
As a reward for turning up on a cold Sunday night, the crowd was rewarded with a trip to Gumbo land, the encore consisting of 3 tracks from the "Black Milk" album, beginning with the title track, followed up with "Finger Lickin’ "and the blistering "Let's Get Funky", prefaced with the immortal lines: “Mr Jones, Mr Jones, I want to get funky!!!’
Tex Perkins does seem to have mellowed, sharing the stage with a woman who felt that we deserved to see her gyrate during "Get Funky" and generally get in the way. She was not mistreated in any way, which was quite a surprise, as compared to the stage invader during the BDO who was asked to drop his trousers or get of stage. We were, however, treated to another display of Tex practicing his kicking with water bottles at the completion off the show. His kicking, like the Beasts show, was Straight, Hard and Long indeed.TEX PHOTO BY BLACKSHADOW PHOTOGRAPHY
