Reviewed on Sunday May 24 (photo by Prudence Upton)
Raw, ugly, aggressive, disarmingly direct – all of these descriptions are regularly applied to The Drones. Sounds a bit confronting for the tidy reverential halls of the Sydney Opera House, right? But in spite of that, this wasn’t the Melbourne band’s first time inside the sails.
Known for his garrulous onstage banter, tonight frontman Gareth Liddiard kept the talk to a minimum. However, he did let us know that on the way to the venue, the band’s GPS took them all the way to the other side of the Harbour Bridge and back again.
“It was an iconic drive,” he quipped, pausing, before clarifying, “because we were in the car.” By this point, The Drones were four songs into an anniversary recital of 2005’s Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By – a historic entry into the Australian rock music canon, which seems inspired by many a wrong turn.
The Drones’ oft-perceived rawness is less a sign of nonchalance than a by-product of the stark themes and primal emotions underlying a great many of their songs. There’s nothing pretty about sucking the brains out of a prawn head, but for those who dare, that’s where the real flavour is. Likewise, The Drones go in for the dirt. This was clear from this evening’s opening number, the widely worshipped ‘Shark Fin Blues’. The song documents the downward spiral of depression, but it conveyed a feeling akin to the exhilaration of fury.
Judging by his erratic onstage movements, you could imagine the rake-thin Liddiard drives his comrades mad on a lengthy drive. In the throes of a song, however, his constant jitterbugging was an inarguable asset. Whatever bug he’s got, it kept on stinging, pushing him towards more and more maddened brilliance. That said, it wouldn’t have worked so well if it weren’t for the solid roots planted by bassist Fiona Kitschin and drummer Christian Strybosch. Their unflappable foundations were particularly pronounced during the unexpected late-set detour into Here Come The Lies cut ‘Six Ways To Sunday’.
The Drones are often deemed a distinctly Australian band. While not a miscued appraisal, theirs isn’t a clichéd, BBQs and beach-bods look at Oz. This was evident in Wait Long By The River highlight ‘Locust’, which bites into the isolation and vast emptiness; the illusions we uphold to keep from feeling like small fish, and the malign and ultimately self-destructive lies we accept in order to remain ‘the lucky country’.
Some of the noises conjured up by the two guitarists onstage were downright agonising, especially in the show’s final number ‘The Miller’s Daughter’. Meanwhile, when Liddiard leapt into that song’s piercing lyrical tirade, traceable melodic scansion disappeared. His lyrics are basically the antithesis of Victorian romantic poetry, but they’re just about always worth hearing.
Tonight, a lot of words were lost in the whirl of beating aggression, but it wasn’t at the cost of the songs’ ferocious impact. On the contrary, Liddiard and co. are at their most convincing when sublimating their rage into the songs, which they did for the entirety of this 80-minute performance. And that’s what it takes to be a fucking icon.
