For the first time in living memory, set times at the Hi-Fi were running according to advertised scheduled, and The Drones were onstage and playing by 10pm. There’s no warm-up with this band, no time to settle in, no easing into the action. Gareth Liddiard is immediately contorting and writhing around, his guitar slung barely above knee height. Fiona Kitschin has her back to the crowd, following every beat from Mike Noga’s drum kit. Dan Luscombe is to The Drones as Charlie Owen is to the Beasts of Bourbon; he’s technically fantastic, but without the prevailing sense of mania and madness of Rui Pereira, his predecessor on guitar. With his frizzy hair and bear, new recruit Stevie Hesketh is Sideshow Bob meets Digger and the Pussycats’ Andy Moore; later on, someone invokes the memory of former Richmond legend Jim Jess, now catching crayfish in Robe in South Australia.
Liddiard is as brilliant a raconteur as he is a storyteller; even when he stumbles through a joke relayed by Noga, Liddiard has the crowd tittering with laughter. His impish grin gives way to a tide of human suffering in Locust, animal suffering in Laika, and controlled bile in Why Write a Letter That You’ll Never Send. Baby2 appears on setlist for the first time in many years; I Don’t Ever Wanna Change is the emphatic denial of a life lost to beige interests, and packs a bigger punch than Phil Carman acting under provocation.
Without Pereira, The Drones are more song-based, and the end-of-song crescendo eschews the cataclysmic sensation of yore. But every moment is perfectly executed, and the set builds to a climax. The opening bracket ends with Black to Communist, The Drones’ brutal take on the MC5’s Black to Comm. It’s a surprise appearance that sends a shiver down our spines, and we hope that the moment will never end.
The band returns shortly after, and winds up the evening with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Diamonds in the Mine. With Harmony’s Tom Lyncoln guesting on guitar, it does the night perfect justice. The lights come on, and the security staff are upon us, ushering us politely, but firmly out of the venue. The Drones are a great band, a paragon of rock’n’roll excellence and virtue.
BY PATRICK EMERY
LOVED: From Black To Communist
HATED: paying $9 for a Fat Yak
DRANK: Fat Yak, at prohibitive prices designed to dissuade binge drinking
