LIVE REVIEW: THE SUPERSUCKERS, Perth, 25 June 2014

LIVE REVIEW: THE SUPERSUCKERS, Perth, 25 June 2014
The Supersuckers with Chainsaw Hookers & Legs Electric
The Astor Lounge, Perth, Wednesday 25 June 2014
Review & photos by Shane Pinnegar

They ain’t The Rolling Stones, folks, but there’s something very special about The Supersuckers, and they took the stage like the ‘greatest rock n’ roll band in the world’ that they self-aggrandise themselves to be.

First though, local ladies LEGS ELECTRIC tripped at the gate with a muddy sound and a miscue or two, but it didn’t take long to hit their stride with a feisty cover of Queen’s Tie Your Mother Down and their own Strange Addiction, She Like A Saint and Kingdom channeling maximum rock n’ roll power.

 

CHAINSAW HOOKERS are a rampant mess of guitars, beards and danger from the get-go, thrashing just as many chords as it takes to make an unholy noise that lurks on the punker side of Motorhead. Favourites Never Sleep Again, Blood Moon Rising, Death Proof and My Revenge kick down the barricades with their dark, brutal, pretence-free ‘blood rock’. They’re just about the punkest thing this town has to offer and a ferocious take on KISS’s Love Gun crashes their set to a halt.

 

THE SUPERSUCKERS had a lot to follow but lived up to their self-proclaimed status as heavyweight champs of the rocking world, kicking out the jams from note one, raising their guitars skywards triumphantly after mostly every song. Leaning heavily on their latest album Get The Hell, the band ply their irresistibly catchy tunes with a full frontal guitar assault that could be likened to Cheap Trick cubed. They blast through Get The Hell, Fuck Up, High Tonight, Never Let Me Down Again (A Depeche Mode cover from the new record) – all before speaking a word.

“Are you ready to start the show now?” frontman and bassist Eddie Spaghetti asks, before leading the band in a triumphant crescendo of sound & goading a round of applause from the crowd that is more suited to the end of a performance.

Bad Bad Bad, The Evil Powers Of Rock n’ Roll, Paid, Luck – all hits-that-shoulda-woulda-coulda-been, all testament to the sheer irrepressible quality of this band who occupy a unique bit of territory in the no-man’s-land between rock, punk and radio. They’re too damned COOL to be more than a cult favourite – not to mention too damn raw, their sugar-coated melodies wrapped up in barbed wire.

If there’s one thing these guys don’t lack, it’s self-belief, and they continue to act as if they’re playing a stadium to tens of thousands, still pointing those matching Gibson Goldtops to the ceiling or spreading their arms aloft at every opportunity, catching whatever adulation is thrust their way like a puppy lapping up a bowl of milk.

Oldies and newies jostled for pride of place – Rock n’ Roll Records (Ain’t Selling This Year), Rock Your Ass, Mudhead (sung by lead guitarist Marty Chandler), Something About You, Gluttonous, Disaster Bastard, How To Maximise Your Kill Count and Goodbye all come and go with the amps turned up to eleven as the four –piece throw all the rock shapes and joke around with each other and the crowd.

There’s a (traditional for the band) false ending eschewing the more expected encore process, before Spaghetti & the boys take us out with Pretty Fucked Up, AC/DC’s Rock N’ Roll Singer (well – they had come straight off the plane and gone directly to pay respects at Bon Scott’s Fremantle grave) and their one legitimate near-hit, Born With A Tail.

Maybe these cats really ARE The Greatest Rock n’ Roll Band In The World?! We already knew they could talk the talk, and tonight’s gig showed they can walk the walk as well.

 

Category: Live Reviews