It’s early Saturday evening on Fitzroy Street, and cashed up bogans are fighting with backpackers for cultural supremacy on St Kilda’s once decadent and depraved entertainment strip. Across the road from the once magisterial Seaview Ballroom, and the St Kilda Bowling Club is playing host to the sixth Day By the Green festival of south-side bands. The front bar is the weekend Crackerjack lawn bowls crowd, punctuated with crusty long-term St Kilda patrons trading fading memories of punk gigs of yore
Festivities kicked off mid-afternoon; by early evening the atmosphere is thick with mature punk rock attitude. Vice Grip Pussies take the stage around 9pm, offering up a diet of pummelling Sabbath riffs through the filter of the Roxy in the early 1980s. Former Johnny and current Patron Saint Billy Pommer – whose latest outfit, the Guilty Plea, made its debut a couple of hours earlier – watches with paternal admiration as his two sons progress their rock’n’roll apprenticeship.
Cold Harbour don’t play very often, but every sighting is memorable. The licks are as tight as a nun’s proverbial, and we’re led on a journey through lush swampland territories traversed by Ennio Morricone, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Spencer Jones. It’s typically cinematic, with sunsets, cacti and the tragic detritus of humanity. “Fuck, these guys are good,” remarks a friend as Cold Harbour hit the first dirty spaghetti western chords of their set. Damn straight. A one-legged punter spirits across in front of the stage; minutes later, a second amputee is seen waving his artificial leg in the air in excitement. Surreal.
The last track of the set is always going to be a killer. There’s a mumbling introduction and we hear a lick that seems familiar. We exchange furtive glances, almost scared to utter our suspicions lest the moment not materialise. And then it happens – God’s My Pal, and we’re swept into a cognitive state beyond mortal understanding. It’s almost too much to comprehend, a spiritual event that can only be truly appreciated with the passage of time. Tears are almost shed, and the set concludes. Does rock’n’roll ever get better than this?
Bitter Sweet Kicks are on stage 15 minutes later, and the love continues. By this time there’s more love in the air than a mass Moonie wedding, and the metaphorical tears of joy have saturated the air. “I’ve seen a lot of bands in my time,” an old school punter told me recently, “but these guys are fucking sensational!” It’s a recommendation that’s been shared by many others since, and it’s on the money. Tommy Hafey would have us all believe football is a simple game, and so it is with rock’n’roll, but only in the hands of the truly empathetic. Riffs rain down with the ferocity of a tropical storm, and we’re converted to the cause.
The night ends, somewhere, sometime, and the details of the evening seem almost too fantastic to believe. Was it really that good? Fuck, yes.
LOVED: The opening chords of My Pal. Ouch.
HATED: The realisation that the night was over.
DRANK: Cooper’s Pale, with excellent service.
BY PATRICK EMERY
