Local knuckleheads Ausmuteants blast open proceedings with a squall of keyboard-driven, Buzzcocksy punk, giving the night its first taste of Vice party retardo glibness. The early crowd reacts better to the band’s ballsy organ throb, almost nu wave diversions and gloriously dumb and to the point lyrics. They even give the Devoto nod some extra mileage by throwing in a Magazine cover.
Sydney’s Raw Prawn seem a little older, but the music is no more seasoned. Loosely tuned post-punk with a bassy rawness and lazy yelps for backing vocals, it feels like music born from an unholy union of Sydney and Manchester’s suburbs circa the late-‘70s. When they lock into gear, it’s pummeling, and a welcome cover of Devo’s Secret Agent Man – the lyrics stripped back into a raspy, almost Dylan-esque mutter – makes things even better. Kicking single None Left gets a pit going, and really, that’s the only appropriate reaction.
A quick wander around the Where?House second level to check out the market and food, it’s back downstairs to the squiggly lasers and boxy lilac backdrop for deconstructed ex-Adelaide janglers Bitch Prefect, who open with their early 7-inch tune Holiday In America. The trio have attracted a lot of love thanks to album Big Time and while there’s certainly nothing wrong with inspiring people to listen to more Flying Nun records, Scott and Liam’s consciously artless vocals and the backyard goon pop aesthetic isn’t to everyone’s taste. The unadorned guitar melodies sometimes battle with the atonal voices, but at certain moments it gels perfectly; Bad Decisions attaining the wonderfully off-kilter could-fall-apart-at-any-moment vibe of bands like the Raincoats.
After the brief breaks between preceding bands, the wait for Straight Arrows seems (subjectively) eternal. But perhaps there’s a reason for this, because the scrappy garage band that used to be the Straight Arrows seem to have been replaced by a festival stage headliner with the same members. Louder, tighter, faster and more confident than any of tonight’s support acts, the Sydney band put on a blistering display from song one. Owen is in fine vocal form; Angela remains icy cool, and the new songs from 2013’s planned follow-up to It’s Happening promise a next-level shift. Everything about them seems beefed up and hyper-charged tonight, and the four-piece make hay with Music Week’s sound production budget. “This song’s about the ghosts that haunt this warehouse,” gasps Owen before launching into the relatively, for Straight Arrows, laid back Haunted Out, the circular riffs bouncing off the concrete pillars. Of course it’s Bad Temper that really electrifies the room, given a frantic energy that’s more than most Monday nights deserve. It’s a performance that points to the band moving beyond the realm of cult favourites next year, and marks an early highlight for the MMW program.
BY CHRIS HARMS
LOVED: Raw Prawn doing Devo and the Where?House space itself.
HATED: People in drink lines who don’t understand “single file”.
DRANK: Something that turned out to be 50% head, but it was free so that’s ok.
