Thank fuck Kid Congo Powers decided to step out of the shadows and become a frontman: it doesn’t get much more entertaining than this. In his formative years, Kid’s Mexican/American folks took him to the drive-in to watch kooky movies about freaks out for kicks. He says it shaped him as an adult and you can tell: this is music for Russ Meyers’ girls, a John Waters’ movie or a spot of reefer madness.
The founding member of the Gun Club (together with Jeffrey Lee Pierce), ex-guitarist for the Cramps and one-time member of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds casts garage-surf-spaghetti-western-retro-futuristic magic onstage. As always, Kid is sartorially splendid, rocking his trademark pencil-thin mo, a striped suit, shirt and tie, winkle pickers and a Russian fur hat (Vogue pegged him as a style icon this year). What follows is raucous, theatrical and super fun rock from the uncle of punk. Kid makes go-go dancers out of us all.
In between songs Kid tells mini tales setting the stage for the tunes to follow. He comes off as both kindly and eye-rollingly crazy, covering everything from peanuts to prize-winning zucchinis at an Oakleigh agricultural fair. The band’s 2013 album Haunted Head is still on high rotation, but this year’s album La Araña Es la Vida pips it for pole position, a set touching on every highlight, including ‘60s-style garage nuggets Anything to Say and Psychic Future and the arachnid title track, is an invitation to go nuts.
Aussie rock’n’roll royalty turned out in droves for the band’s Melbourne gig. Punters watch the band tucked behind Dave Graney and for encore Kid is handed a note saying that Tex (as in Perkins) wants in on the rock’n’roll riot, offering to belt out the Gun Club classic Sex Beat. Perkins joins the Pink Monkey Birds onstage to growl and howl his way through the rendition. Kid is chuffed. “That was very exciting for me,” he says. “I had an organism.” Us too.
BY MEG CRAWFORD
Loved: Every goddamn thing.
Hated: Nuthin’. So much love, baby.
Drank: Mineral water.
