19 December 2009, Corner Hotel, Melbourne
In my continuing series of seeing old Aussie 80s bands, I wasn't sure about the Lime Spiders. Yeah, Slave Girl is a pretty awesome song, but is that enough? I had an early morning the next day as well. But it is at the Northcote Social Club, like 5 minutes away, it seems silly not to go.
Not a lot of people there when I get there. In hindsight, the Screwtop Detonators shouldn't have been enough to get me there early either. Their myspace pages quotes a lot of old punk bands, mostly 70s NY punk, but I just wasn't hearing it so much. Some day when they are bigger than Blink 182, they can have proved me wrong, but for me there was something about them tonight that was just a huge mess. I also see that they have recently lost their drummer and have a new one now. I think that was a whole lot of their problem. The rhythm seemed to be a mess, it seemed like every time he did a drum fill, he would be late on the beat, or something that totally threw it all off. The singer at one point complained that his vocals were too loud in the monitors, he hated his voice, could they turn it down. Hmm, not a ringing self endorsement.
The crowd didn't warm to them very much (the 20 people who were there at the time) and the band made those silences between the songs rather awkward by being a little upset about them. Maybe they were having an off night, or they just weren't that great to start with. Although, they did do a version of Police On My Back, which I have a bit of a soft spot for, I have to admit having been in a band which did a version of it as well.
The Devilrock Four start and yeah that's more like it. I had a better feeling while they were setting up, the guitar player played along with TV Eye which was one of the in between set songs. Two guys were in back shuffling through their cds, playing stuff between sets, some of it cool - Saints, Celebate Rifles, and some of it not - Blink 182, I think. But Devilrock Four, launch in and I think, yeah, better, a little bit like the Fluid. They aspire more towards more harder punk, Radio Birdman or there about, than the Screwtops who wanted to be more pop. They also solved the problem of silence between songs Husker Du style, that is don't stop between songs.
But after a few songs, it starts to sound the same and I get a little bored. I mean they are fairly tight and have a pretty good sound but it just doesn't hold my interest past a few songs. There is a rather strange guy jumping around and dancing in the audience, spinning on the ground and whacking his own head with his hand. I assume that he wasn't quite all there. He was slightly entertaining yet I spent most of the set (and the next one) worrying that he would run into me, step on my feet, or whatever.
When the Lime Spiders come on, they don't quite match my picture of them, at Mick Blood and the famous voice. The rest seem grizzly enough, two guitars, bass, drum and that voice, I believe at least one guitar player and bass player are original members (or at least from the 80s when they did the bulk of their work). I enjoy their version of Are You Loving Me More (Electric Prunes). Slave Girl, they have to play it, is about 2/3rds of the way through and pretty much lives up to my expectations. I suppose Slave Girl is mostly why I showed up, you know, the one song that bands have that so far exceed anything else they ever did. Not to say the rest of the set isn't good, I like a lot of their other songs but really Slave Girl is like a perfect song.
They do a pretty decent version of Iggy Pop's I'm Bored. I spend a lot of the show closer to one of the guitar amps, some loud and cool sounds coming out of there. But yeah, I'm pleased I went to see them, it was a good set of loud psychedelic fuzz with that unique voice in the middle. They do one song for an encore then leave. At least they don't drag out the whole encore thing like some people do any more. Then home isn't far away, I'm home and in bed a few minutes after the show.
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