Reviewed on Friday, May 24
Firing his nerf gun across the scrum of sweat-drenched teenagers choking the floor of the Metro, Seth Sentry‘s ammunition seems limitless – festival headline slots, a string of sell-out shows, and a rap battle win at SXSW all flanking the release of his debut LP This Was Tomorrow. Sentry has proven he has the chops. “Headshot!” he announces, and his devotees erupt in laughter, before abandoning his weapon and launching into the impassioned ‘Ink Blot Test’: “Set ’em up, dead ’em up, pick a weapon up. Get it done.”
With Ellesquire and Thundamentals’ Tuka stirring the sonic cauldron earlier in the evening, joined by appropriately-attired DJ Ninja, the room’s momentum had snowballed when Tuka offered up his collective’s cover of Matt Corby’s ‘Brother’ to a resounding “oooOOOooh”.
DJ Sizzle soon hijacked the decks as Sentry’s sidekick, dropping the epic ode to ignorant bliss ‘Float Away’, punctuated perfectly by “our mate, Siz” with solid vocal inflections and improvised effects. Dipping into his Waiter Minute EP, Sentry cranked out ‘The Waitress Song’, an anthemic ditty to name-free romances; the house speakers fell victim to the crowd as they sang back every lyric as emphatically as humanly possible. Throwing on an apron and tossing the mic to the audience, Australia’s golden boy proceeded to take orders as a prelude to ‘Thanks For Your Hospitality’, a middle finger to “Shitty staff meals, large bills, no tips…decaf skinny weak mocha lattes in a mug.”
After breezing through his other frenzy-inducing hits, the former Employee of the Year left the stage, only to return with local hip hop act Horrorshow, who kept the audience in perfectly synchronised signature hip hop hand dives. Even the too-cool-for-this-all-ages-business comrades at the back ditched dignity for a head-boppin’ hip swing, before Sentry brought all his support acts back for the encore – a rap battle inspired by everyday items offered up by the audience, from a iPhone and hair comb to toiletries.
BY MINA KOTSIS
