Reviewed on Friday August 7
In spite of only being a matter of months old, White Dog are quickly making their presence felt in Sydney’s wider punk scene. Starting late and finishing early, their whirlwind take on the genre is unsettling to some older attendees, who may not have expected such noise in their evening. True to form, the band members pay no mind to any indifference in the room. They find themselves too preoccupied with hole-stomping, vitriolic numbers like ‘No Good’, which features possibly the best Saints riff Ed Kuepper never wrote matched with the authoritative fury of contemporaries such as Low Life.
Brisbane’s Hits have shared the stage with acts like Radio Birdman, Hard-Ons and The Scientists. Within five minutes of them arriving, one has a full comprehension why that is. Their frontman – known as Evil Dick – quite literally throws himself into the music, writhing and grandly gesturing before toppling over in a heap. On either side of him is a twin guitar attack that noisily and purposefully tears through vintage pub rock, its punk heritage giving it the sting in the tail that sets them apart. A wildly entertaining prospect and certainly an act to go out of your way to see.
How do The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion do it? Sure, we all remember their wild performance on Recovery – in fact, the song they played that morning, ‘2 Kindsa Love’, is what opens the set tonight. Still, that was 1997 – we’re nearly two decades removed, and this band is still going on the same level with the same energy. At 50 years old, Spencer himself is more lively than most 20-somethings. He knee-lunges, he shimmies, he shakes, he screams; all the while, Russell Simins and Judah Bauer keep up the pace without batting an eye. A great example of the latter is Spencer calling out for ‘Bellbottoms’, playing it for roughly 90 seconds and then changing his mind. The transition into the next song is seamless, as if they planned the whole thing.
So, what’s their secret? It could have to do with their pedigree of 20-plus years locked into one another’s groove. It could be how their new album, Freedom Tower – No Wave Dance Party 2015, has injected adrenaline back into the trio’s core. Still, no matter what hypothesis you mull over, it all comes back to one single undeniable fact: the blues is number one.
