Bluejuice @ Metro Theatre

Chances are that anyone who has been to an Australian music festival in the last seven years – no matter the size, both on and off the beaten track – has seen Bluejuice perform. The Sydneysiders aren’t just festival whores, however. There is a bit of that, but led by two irrepressible, semi-naked vocalists, they’re also perfectly fashioned for entertaining large groups of rowdy, willing punters.

If somehow you haven’t come across the band live, it’s unlikely you’ve avoided hearing (and subsequently internalising) one of its pop-rock/arena-funk/hip hop tunes. In terms of actual hits, Bluejuice have had a handful of those. But even if they didn’t always garner high rotation radio play, they spent their three-album run amassing a stash of tunes that allowed frontmen Jake Stone and Stav Yiannoukas to command tonight’s all-ages Metro crowd through sing-along after sing-along.

Given their status as festival regulars, it’s no surprise Bluejuice have attracted a decent underage following. The kids who filled a large portion of the floor area tonight were across the band’s latest material. Recent single ‘I’ll Go Crazy’ – released just prior to this farewell tour – was lapped up without a hint of indifference. Album material from 2007’s Problems also garnered voluble expressions of favour. It was the tracks from 2009’s Head Of The Hawk, however, that shone as the compositional highlights. ‘Work’, ‘(Ain’t) Telling The Truth’, ‘Facelift’ and the TISM-channelling ‘Medication’ all incited a certain lung-trembling uproar.

Beyond their easy-to-read tunes, a large component of Bluejuice’s party-starting reliability is Jake and Stav’s unruly onstage behaviour. Tonight, Jake was considerably more jacked up than his partner in crime. In addition to climbing speaker stacks and walking/floating across the heads of the crowd, at one point he firmly yelled for both the audience and rest of the band to “go fucking crazy”.

When it came to the set’s final number, breakthrough single ‘Vitriol’, the stage filled with several longtime Bluejuice comrades from Art vs. Science, The Jezabels and The Aston Shuffle. Just about everybody in the vicinity followed Stone’s advice, letting their silliest and most excitable side run loose.

Generally speaking, Bluejuice material encourages shelving one’s regular taste criterion to gobble up hearty chunks of cheese. But an occasion of fun and ridiculousness has always been the Bluejuice guarantee – whatever it takes to get there.