In our more pretentious moments, we can all try to convince ourselves that nostalgia doesn’t cloud our judgement – that when we listen to music we enjoyed at an earlier point of our lives, it’s because we still genuinely appreciate it. However, it’s hard to make this claim with any certainty. Pure reflective nostalgia, rooted in a longing for the ‘good old days’, isn’t a particularly positive inclination. But when the power of nostalgia fills you with sheer joy, and generates unity among a group of strangers, then surely it serves a constructive purpose.
It’s fair to say Jebediah’s ability to sell out four-straight shows at the Corner Hotel has something to do with nostalgia. This is the Perth band’s 20th anniversary tour and they were here to perform their 1997 debut Slightly Odway in its entirety. But the positive feeling in the Corner wasn’t punctuated by a yearning for how things used to be. This was a room full of people who bloody love the Jebs, and who were proud to celebrate that fact.
To be fair on Jebediah, they didn’t stop dead in the distant past. The night was divided into two parts; before the main event came a set condensing all of the band’s post-Odway output, which dates up to 2011’s Kosciusko. At no point did the band look like they were imitating their former selves. OK, the foursome still look exactly the same, but they were here in this moment, passionately invested in the songs.
Kicking off the early set with Star Machine (from 1999’s Of Someday Shambles),it didn’t take long for the sing-alongs to start. Several songs generated a similarly rousing response; Please Leave’s“Screw up your life again,” refrain had never felt so pertinent, while the likes of Animal and She’s Like A Comet got fists pounding the air.
Jebediah haven’t really tinkered with their setup during the last 20 years. They’re a four-piece rock band with a clearly defined rhythm and lead guitarist. The guitar sounds still alternate between clean and fucking dirty, and frontman Kevin Mitchell continues to bleat pseudo-English in a nasal, self-distorting tone. Here’s where the issue of nostalgia crops up: introducing someone to Jebediah today, it’s a hard sell. In 2015, we’re supposed to know better than to like these kinds of sounds. However, taste and intellect are by no means inextricably connected, so if this sounds good to us, but is hard to swallow for someone else, there’s no right or wrong. That said, anyone who didn’t tune into Jebediah the first time around is plainly missing out.
When the Jebs came back out and launched into Slightly Odway, there was more than one person in the room struggling to fight back tears of joy. The album begins with Leaving Home, and from there on it was hit-central. Crowd favourite Harpoon re-introduced the scent of teenage romance, while the band’s breakthrough single Jerks of Attention continued to stand-up for drunken pride. The biggest event of the night was Teflon. While many folks were already engaged in an elated pogo-boogie, Teflon relaxed the shoulders of even the most reticent punters.
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
Loved: “LIKE A HAR-BOO IN MY HIGH”.
Hated: Feeling like one of those ‘triple j’s changed’ old guys.
Drank: Until I became ten feet tall.
