The night kicked off with Woo Who playing a surf punk set with songs touching on several fun but blatantly juvenile topics, such as farts and hangovers. This style has been done to death, but to their credit, the bass player was slapping his instrument with some notable technique, the effects pedals setup on a kid’s skateboard was a nice quirk, and they looked like they were having fun. Up next were Sewer Side, who also chucked out some California surf-punk. Though, theirs was a slightly more evolved take on the genre. They employed a reverb covered guitar and vocal style similar to the Growlers, along with a detectable hint of Chuck Berry influence.
The lineup highlighted a few flaws in the state of the Melbourne music scene. Surf punk has peaked. There’s stagnation in the field as far as musical talent goes – a lot of bands sound far too similar. Nothing’s emerged out of the Melbourne surf scene in the past year that hasn’t been a watered down version of either a larger American band such as Thee Oh Sees or The Growlers, or a locally established act such as Mesa Cosa or Dumb Punts.
On that note, Dumb Punts had the crowd going before they even started. As they wrapped up sound check and started strumming on their instruments, the crowd were glued to the stage like kids lining up for ice cream. They were treated to clunky bass, grunge riffs and slow drumming. Dumb Punts put a real emphasis on low end, which resonated well in the stone basement. This was balanced out by reverbed barks from the microphone and a wall of distorted mess courtesy of the guitar.
They pulled out all stops to get the crowd going, playing a King Khan cover mid-set and swapping around band members from time to time. Attendees paddled their hands on the roof, drunkenly swayed arm in arm and sang-along when they could. As weird as the scene may be, the kids are all right.
BY THOMAS BRAND
Loved: Wine.
Hated: Feeling old.
Drank: Wine.
