When I saw Violent Soho in August last year for a Hungry Ghostpreview show it was evident that they were a band on the precipice greatness. Tonight’s sold-out performance at The Hi-Fi was a thundering avalanche in the affirmative of that feeling I had on first hearing all the material from Violent Soho’s third album. This affirmation was further ratified by the fact that this was the second of four sold-out headline gigs for Violent Soho at The Hi-Fi.
The night opened with local Collingwood metal act High Tension, notably featuring the blood curdling squall of Karina Utomo that careens down a terrorising path laid out by bass player Matt Weston, guitarist Ash Pegram and drummer Damien Coward. Continuing the theme of avalanches, High Tension’s single High Risk High Rewards is the aural equivalent of a crushing land disaster – ‘crushing’ and ‘disaster’ in a good way.
By the time The Smith Street Band’s roadies were sound-checking, the venue was at capacity, giving credence to the statement that in this town the show was essentially a double headliner.
A reggae track espousing the qualities of marijuana over alcohol heralded the beginning of The Smith Street Band with Wil Wagner and co joining the stage while this song played out. Anyway, Smith Street Band beanies adorned the crowd even as they moshed and sang-a-long. What is it with punk crowds and merch? SSB debuted a new song from their upcoming album (due out October) called Surrender. This track seemed to follow a more traditional punk structure – a consistent ‘jigga-jigga’ for the entirety of the song as opposed to Smith Street’s standard quiet verse LOUD chorus. The fevering crowd for SSB was typified by a fan limping out of the mosh with a fully dislocated shoulder.
From conducting previous interviews I know that Violent Soho have shied away from the blatant ‘90s grunge references in their sound. But that seems to have gone the way of the dodo as the house sound system cranked Nirvana’s Sliver as the band’s equipment was being set up and then Rage Against Tte Machine’s Killing in the Name was played at full volume in its entirety with Luke Boredom, James Tidswell, Luke Henery and Michael Richards taking the stage during the outro of “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!” When the last of chord of Rage played out, Boredom said, “Welcome to round 2” and the band launched into Lowbrow.
The mosh was building during this song but it was for In the Aisle that shit really got real for those within ten metres of the stage. At the end of this song, guitarist James Tidswell asked a bloody-nosed lad if he was okay, only for Boredom to realise the injured fan had followed the band from Perth – where VS has played on Thursday night – so this loyal fan was invited on stage and spent the rest of the show moshing side of stage.
The punk ethos of Violent Soho and the contrasting combination of brutality and pastoral care seemed to unite this crowd. This gig was an example of a band at their peak; having formed ten years ago it seems as though, from this performance, these four Brisbane have spent every year since honing their musical and performance abilities.
Arguably the most satisfying live experience so far in 2014 was when they began to play that intro for Covered in Chrome – all in attendance held a collective breath knowing that the most awesome “Yeah yeah yeah” in rock’n’roll was about to drop.
BY DENVER MAXX (AKA DARREN DARRENBERG)
Photo by Ian Laidlaw
Loved: Covered in Chrome.
Hated: That I couldn’t afford all six Violent Soho t-shirt designs.
Drank: My own *explicit* when I *explicit* over how awesome the show was when I got home.
