Live

Rip It Up, Issue 233, 1 January 1997, Page 33

Live

AC/DC, THE SHIHADS. Ericsson Stadium, Auckland-, November 27. Boy, did I look out of place. A fluorescent Kozmik sweatshirt, billowing stripey gym pants, and grey zip-up shoes are not de rigueur at Acca Dacca, moight, and portions of the Ericsson crowd, a mix of the Great Unwashed, bogans with beer bellies, and trainee mullets, weren’t slow to inform me of this. And they didn’t like Shihad! • Wellington's finest battled for almost half an hour against audience indifference and the most horrid guitar sound I think they’ve ever had. Not to matter, they seemed to be having fun. ‘Pig Bop’, cut a groove like a hot scoop through ice cream, and the irony of Shihad playing ‘Hate Boys’ to this gathering was classic. “We get to go one, two, three, four, and then rock,” said Jon Toogood, before departing, “this is a good job.”

Striding on stage like he had a boiled egg rammed up his ass, a Real Man from Radio Hauraki was sent forth to get the crowd raging. He spoke in a voice that suggested he’d just swallowed his own balls; “Let’s hear it for some great koywoy rock — the Shihads.” ...Awesome.

AC/DC were everything you knew they were going to be and more. Angus Young was as cartoon as always, and Brian Johnson never stepped away from being the fat Northern bastard that he is. And Phil Rudd... well he was just swingin’. ‘Back in Black’ opens, and they’re Into it already. Rudd locks down a beat and not even a bulldozer could shift him. Young, as he will do for the entire show, hops and sprints from right to left across the expanse of the stage, and Johnson screeches for his

supper with all the passion he can muster. And that’s what I adore about AC/DC; they may not want to do interviews or meet their record company, but put them on stage and these five will play with more fire than some bands half their age. Tonight Ballbreaker gets a hefty look in, plus all the hits you could ever want: ‘Shot Down in Flames’, ‘Hard as a Rock’, ‘Bogeyman’, ‘The Jack’, ‘Dirty Deeds’ and ‘TNT’. Granted, there was the odd dull moment — Angus’ striptease, and later, Angus’ guitar solo — but mostly this show revealed AC/DC to be in cracking form. With its infectious three-note riff, barrels of attitude, and suspect moral theme, ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ was the evening's cake icing. And when they encored with 'Highway to Hell’ and ‘For Those About to Rock...’, I left feeling almost as good as the bloke who spent the entire concert standing in a vacant space behind the merchandising tent, vigorously humping mid-air. JOHN RUSSELL SUPERCHUNK, LOVES UGLY CHILDREN, SEMI LEMON KOLA Powerstation, Auckland, November 25. Dismal crowd really, for a pretty catchy pop/punk outfit like the Chunksters. Still, it was Monday. Semi Lemon Kola played the same thing they’ve been playing for a few years now, and while it’s polished and big sounding, it failed to carry me anywhere except to the bar. Loves Ugly Children blasted on stage like the tsunami of nervous energy they usually are, Simon in particular. Frenetic assaults of Dinosaur guitar intertwined with pop squalls, but I

still can’t shake the spectre of Cyanide Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ whenever they do the verse of ‘Suck’ — boy, does that bug me. Super Chunk’s second coming was less jaw dropping than their first — foolish thing expectation, oh well. The set lacked the sheer power chording bliss of back catalogue stand outs like ‘Slack Motherfucker’ (a finger to lolly gaggers everywhere), ‘Seed Toss’ and ‘Mower’ amongst others. Fourteen songs doled out in 60 minutes seemed a little like being short changed. Two of the 14 songs (including ‘Cool’ from 91’s ‘Fishing’ single) were the encore, and the hour included a lengthy pause after the roadie failed in his attempt to replace a bass string while Laura was still playing it! There’s a first time for everything — yuh, right. Jim managed to keep the 3-400 odd amused with some vomit humour — apparently a joke currently doing local rounds, ask someone.

Still, fans (myself included) had to enthuse about the air chopping- highs of ‘Hyper Enough’, ‘Skip Steps 1 & 3‘ and ‘Throwing Things’ (both from 1991 ’s No Pocky For Kitty), littered amongst the ‘quieter’ moments of Here’s Where the Strings Come In. Mac’s alter ego, Portastatic, later in the week proved the more inspiring performance, so it was just one of those nights, I guess. And what’s that saying about familiarity? Not yet. MAC HODGE 95bFM PRIVATE FUNCTION \ Oriental Markets, Auckland, November 29. Too much! On Private Function day, perhaps their most high profile

time of the year, bFM decided to let listener boredom levels go off the deep end by having one of the station’s 'celebrity DJs’ tattooed, “live on the radio”. The ‘event’ fell flat on its face (was there ever any doubt?), and you would think the only direction proceedings could have travelled from there was up. In previous years the Private Function, the station’s annual bash for b-Card subscribers, has delivered some Kodak moments: Drill at Abbeys Hotel in 1990, the chaos of the last multi-venue affair, and Pumpkinhead and J Boy T, on consecutive years, at the Old City Markets. PF number eight got off on the good foot with Marty Sauce and the Source playing some gritty, bad-ass rock ’n’ roll outside the recently vacated Oriental Market, the cav-

ernous venue for tonight’s event. Though as the doors opened and official proceedings began, the first noise complaint was laid by local residents. This was reason enough to create a small panic within the bFM camp, as the show would be shut down if two more complaints were received. The Oriental Market is a hideously ugly building, and boasts the atmosphere of a disused freezing works. With only a stage, a bar, and a handful of Playstation sites scattered about, it was not an attractive place to be. I could tell this was going to be a marathon of a night. Hamilton’s Inchworm had the unenviable task of kicking off the live entertainment in front of very few punters, and with their sonically loose, noisy pop tunes, made an admirable go of it. They

weren’t helped out any by two DJs who showed a total lack of respect by cruising past the stage on a farm bike, squawking into a megaphone and throwing candy at the band. It should be noted the motorised duo were nowhere to be seen when the Headless Chickens made an appearance later tn the evening. I guess they knew that Chris Matthews wouldn’t tolerate that behaviour. , . : z Top 10 notables Tim Teen and the Teentones were up next, and knocked out an enjoyable set of sleazy but crisp, swampy rock tunes, the pick of the bunch being ‘Kurt Cobain’ and “that new one”. Crowd numbers had increased dramatically by the time Pash hit the stage, yet a feeling of blandness still pervaded the room. People were waiting for something out of the ordinary to happen,

and it never did. Pash played a perfunctory set of loud guitar pop, and closed with the bFM hit ‘Doowop’. It’s a weird thing, once upon a time Pash would drag you into the madness of their performance, and witnessing them was a thrill. Nowadays, the stage seems a place of seriousness for them, strictly a launch pad to fame, and from my audience perspective, that’s no fun at all. A second noise complaint was laid minutes prior to the (rejuvenated) Hallelujah Picassos arrival on stage, though they appeared unfazed. Now a sixpiece, with only Harold and Bobbyion left from the original line-up, the Picassos wowed with versions of old faves ‘Rewind’ and ‘Picasso Core’, but lost the plot on newer tunes when it seemed as though each member was bashing out a different song to the other. And what’s with Harold’s new conservative approach on stage? Unitone HiFi were fortunate enough to appear when the b-crowd hit a peak size-wise, and pleased many with their ambient, electronic dub. Though from where I was standing, for most of the set it was impossible to know what sounds were live and what was pre-recorded, and as a stage act Unitone were boring beyond belief — like watching three

guys do data entry. The well-dressed lads from Eye TV dropped a surprisingly rockin’ set, buoyed with a classy version of ‘lmmaculate Man’, before it was time for the Trueschool crew. Behind the decks, DLT hosted on stage his Joint Force partners Otis and Slave, followed by the Mighty Asterix, and then Che Fu, who (no surprises here) floored all and sundry with a powerhouse rendition of ‘Chains’. The crowd had more than halved by one in the morning, and was rapidly dwindling away, leaving the Headless Chickens on stage pounding out a squallish noise that was making little sense or impact through the curbed sound system. It was definitely time to join the exodus. On the way out, I asked a friend if she’d had fun; “I’ve just spent five hours in a concrete bunker listening to bands at a ridiculously low volume, and I don’t eat hotdogs. Does that sound like fun?” Of course, nobody was forced to stay at the Private Function, but that’s not the point. The concert is bFM’s ‘thankyou’ to its listeners for supporting the station, and this year it became an exercise in endurance. That’s not the reason why I, nor anybody else, goes out for the night.

JOHN RUSSELL