Cherry Bar is the Melbourne Club of Melbourne rock’n’roll. But whereas the Melbourne Club thrives on exclusivity, privilege and anachronistic social tradition, Cherry Bar proclaims itself a haven of inclusivity, a dark and grimy institution for the artists, punters and sundry ne’er do wells who make rock’n’roll the confrontational sub-culture it must always remain.
“I’ve just seen the best band in Melbourne,” remarked a friend as we arrived at Cherry Bar at 9.30pm. That band was Batpiss, and only the reality of domestic logistics stood between the rest of us and Batpiss’ spit-in-your-face attitude. Like every other band with a grip on the crown of Melbourne’s best rock’n’roll band – and there’s plenty of ‘em – Batpiss deserve and command respect.
And there is HITS. Is there a better exponent of the rock’n’roll craft in Australia? Dick Richards is a pocket battleship: the wild, unkempt coiffure of a man who’s spent six months living with wilderbeast, the thousand-mile punk rock stare of someone for whom rigid social, political and economic structures are the source of both pity and offence. HITS play rock’n’roll like it must always be: loud, brash, brutal and confrontational. Tamara Dawn Bell and Stacey Coleman trade licks like silver-tongued revolutionaries exchanging venomous barbs, and a shiver goes down the collective spine. Does it ever get better than this? Quite possibly not.
The hits are thrown down thick and fast: Jeezus F Christ, Bitter and Twisted, Bullet Train. Bitter Sweet Kicks’ Brendan Charlie joins the band on stage for Sometimes You Just Don’t Know Who Your Friends Are. John Nolan, a man who whose own punk rock trajectory saw him burnt within an inch of his life, stands to the left of the stage, an impish grin barely disguising unbridled respect.
According to local lore, Bitter Sweet Kicks were discovered one Sunday afternoon by Spencer P Jones. Since that time the Kicks have evolved, some might say mutated, into another of Melbourne’s most fantastic rock’n’roll beasts. Jack Davies takes to the microphone like the proverbial deranged preacher; his body writhes and contorts in concert with the razor sharp riffs of guitarists Chris Taranto, and the soon-to-be-departed Brendan Charlie. Johnny Kicks strips down to his birthday suit, the loose contours and rolling curves of physique acts as a one-fingered salute to the fitness fanatics and diet zealots who dominate mainstream culture.
This might be the last time we see Bitter Sweet Kicks for a while, and we try and savour the memory for all it must be worth. It’s pouring with rain outside, and the mercury is dropping faster than Tony Abbott’s approval rating, but inside Cherry Bar there is only that special type of communal love only rock’n’roll can foster. God bless rock’n’roll.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Loved: Every single fucking minute of it.
Hated: That it had to eventually finish.
Drank: Because it was my birthday and I could. Coopers, both red and green.
