LIVE: SHIHAD with BATTLESNAKE – Perth, 21st and 22nd Feb 2025

LIVE: SHIHAD with BATTLESNAKE – Perth, 21st and 22nd Feb 2025
Friday 21st Feb – The Astor Theatre; Saturday 22nd Feb – The Rosemount Hotel
With Battlesnake and Rat Salad
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Stu McKay from Friday 21st February 2025

After thirty-six years together, Aotearoa behemoths Shihad are doing one final lap of Australia before they bow out with dignity and grace – much to the disappointment of their throngs of fans.

I must have seen them a dozen times over the years, from crowd-winning mid-afternoon Big Day Out sets to ferocious headline shows blowing us away on the old Rosemount Hotel stage and more. I can say hand on heart that never have they fallen flat, not even for a single song, and every time I’ve wondered why they weren’t playing Arenas, but the music business is fickle and that sadly wasn’t to be.

Put in simpler terms, there are few bands who are as intense and flawless as Shihad, and their two final shows in Perth will forever stand as testament of that.

But these are not simply two nights of a tour – these are completely different shows, oh yes. Night one – Friday – is at The Astor Theatre, a grand old dame that has been a movie house, theatre and now one of this town’s best live music venues, where Shihad promised to deliver a greatest hits trawl through their entire career. Night two – Saturday – is at suburban pub The Rosemount Hotel on a stage less than half the size of the previous night’s with a crowd packed to sardine-like capacity, eager to hear the 1999 album The General Electric from start to finish.

Support on both nights comes from local openers Rat Salad, who rocked as hugely as always, and Sydney visitors Battlesnake and their unique show. I never want to live in a world where six grown men can’t take the stage in front of a large neon cross wearing quasi-religious gold trimmed robes looking like they just stepped off the set of Godspell and play occult metal of the highest order. They even have a keytar, FFS.

I Am The Vomit is an early highlight, a wilfully grotesque high-energy gallop while their be-horned frontman Sam Frank revs the crowd up and our keytar man Billy O’Key runs around like the energiser bunny on crack. The Battlesnake and The Dungeon Witch keep the volume turned up to eleven, the latter including a speed metal breakdown, while The Atomic Plough is simply heavy metal perfection by way of Monty Python absurdity. Both night’s sets are finished with raucous run-throughs of AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, complete with Frank (who looks a little like Tim The Enchanter in his full horned getup, just to stretch the Python reference) & O’Key stripped down to their undies, the latter piggybacking lead guitarist (either Daniel Willington or Paul Mason, I dunno them personally) through the crowd like meth-fuelled Bon & Anguses. It takes a lot to be truly unique in this business, and Battlesnake won a lot of new fans over these two shows with their insanely OTT metal madness.

Night one’s format is to start with most recent album Old Gods and play a favourite or three, then step back to the previous album, delivering their (and our) favourite tracks in reverse order. Night two is the same – except in cut down format after running through The General Electric album.

Every member of the band are – as always – completely on form. Drummer Tom Larkin is a relentless powerhouse; bassist Karl Kippenberger as rock solid as they come and completely locked in the heavy groove with Larkin like a tank, formidable and packing firepower – incidentally, later on night one Toogood will note how it wasn’t until Karl joined the band in 1991 that they wrote their “first good song”, Screwtop; Phil Knight’s riffs as crunchy as popcorn chicken and solos as crisp as a handful of potato chips; Jon Toogood living up to his name, his vocals and guitar immaculate as ever, as magnetic and charismatic a frontperson as ever there was, and with hair long again looking for all the world like a cross between Tom Araya and Dave Grohl as he checks in on kids on their parents’ shoulders and shares some endearing banter including stories of their visits to Perth over the decades.

I won’t go through the setlists song by song: it’s enough to know that every track they play over the two night stand is wonderful and a crowd pleaser. Both crowds are completely committed to the experience, singing, shouting, gesticulating, jumping on demand, waving phone lights as required and desperately involved on every possible level – The Astor show even saw some crowd surfers, very rare nowadays and obviously infuriating to the frustrated security staff.

Shihad are an aural tsunami and nothing says “please don’t break up” like two sold out shows with this level of adoration and appreciation. Most bands we hope won’t reform later down the line past their prime (looking at you, Motley Crue and KISS) but in Shihad’s case, I sincerely hope they change their minds after a break of a couple of years.

PS if you’re counting – ten songs played on both nights, fifteen more each night not repeated. Value for money, right there.

Friday 21st Feb 2025 Set List:

Tear Down Those Names
Feel the Fire
Think You’re So Free
Cheap As
Sleepeater
Ignite
One Will Hear the Other
Beautiful Machine
Empty Shell
Alive
Comfort Me
Everything
Semi-Normal
Intro
My Mind’s Sedate
The General Electric
Pacifier
Wait and See
Yr’ Head Is a Rock
Envy
You Again
Screwtop

Run
I Got You (Split Enz cover)
Factory
Home Again

Saturday 22nd February 2025 Set List:

My Mind’s Sedate
The General Electric
Wait and See
Pacifier
Thin White Line
Only Time
Just Like Everybody Else
Sport and Religion
Spacing
The Metal Song
Life in Cars
Brightest Star

Tear Down Those Names
Feel the Fire
Grey Area
Sleepeater
Beautiful Machine
All the Young Fascists
Bullitproof
Run
Ghost From the Past
Get Up
Derail
I Only Said
Home Again

 

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries