LIVE: D-A-D – Perth, 20 May 2025

LIVE: D-A-D – Perth, 20 May 2025
The Rosemount Hotel, Perth, Western Australia
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Pete Gardner

There was nothing but GOOD craziness in the house for the return Danish legends D-A-D to Perth, their undisguised exuberance, beloved songs and good humoured down to earth nature combining for a raucous and fun night of truly great rock n’ roll.

First up are local legends The Volcanics, their Stooges/MC5/New York Dolls grooves at first glance not a natural fit for the Danish hard rock headliners. Rest assured that as soon as those slashing guitars erupt with attitude aplenty and their own great songs come fast and furious, there’s a lot of obvious common ground – enough to get most of the crowd rocking along with their jet engine roar of a sound.

In The Heat Of The Night, Unsatisfied, Submarine, I Bet You Like It and more are all in your face-ively impressive and if frontman Johnny Phatouros is light on small talk, it’s because they have a scant half hour to get the job done and get out of the way. By the time the whole band huddle around drummer Alex Megaw for a final crescendo there aren’t many present not on board with their garage rock onslaught.

Festival headliners back home, D-A-D (formerly Disneyland After Dark until Warner signed them way back in 1989 and insisted on the abbreviation to avoid Walt’s mob suing them) are playing smaller venues here. But their fans are no less hyper excited and ready to rock.

Jihad and Girl Nation from their breakthrough third album No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims open the show and the crowd goes off like the proverbial frog in a sock instantly, jumping, singing, stomping and more. This album, especially, is much loved.

Jesper Binzer out front personifies double denim cool, complete with some bedazzling trim around the pockets; his brother and lead guitarist Jacob Binzer sports a top hat and glasses like a Scandorock Mad Hatter; drummer Laust Sonne, the “new boy” of the band, having joined in 1999, is all slickly quaffed male model chic; but most eyes are on rambunctious bassist Stig Pedersen, sporting knee high silver f-me pumps and his infamous 2-string bass guitars. An Iron Cross model with a Red Baron Fokker at the head is especially wonderful.

“This was announced as a greatest hits tour,” the frontman notes, “we’ll just have to make some new greatest hits if it’s okay with Perth?” It is, and the title track of their great latest album Speed of Darkness is next, its huge Sabbathy riff shaking the foundations.

The set list gets the hugest reactions for the No Fuel material (Point Of View, with its non-conformist lyric and Rim Of Hell are especially crowd pleasing), but there are a smattering from throughout their discography, including Reconstrucdead, the glorious Soft Dogs with its not-quite-English chorus, Grow Or Pay’s car crash epic, early cult favourite Riding With Sue, Everything Glows and more.

Bad Craziness gets everyone ramped up to eleven to end the main set, before a first encore of God Prays To Man (admittedly a bit slow for this spot in the set) and the mighty Sleeping My Day Away, dedicated to everyone who doesn’t have to work tomorrow. It’s an absolute barnstormer and features a solo spot from Jacon Binzer which takes us back to their very early, very twangy cowpunk/rock roots.

A surprise second encore starts with the Binzer brothers on acoustic guitars performing Laugh n’ a Half, before the full band join for what was originally their theme tune of sorts, After Dark, with its refrain “and Disneyland is closed.” It’s a great high note to close out a brilliant night of rock n’ roll and another favourite ticked off the bucket list for this reviewer.

Set List:

Jihad
Girl Nation
Speed of Darkness
Reconstrucdead
Soft Dogs
Grow or Pay
Riding With Sue
The Ghost
Something Good
Keep That Mother Down
Point Of View
Rim of Hell
Everything Glows
Bad Craziness

God Prays To Man
Sleeping My Day Away

Laugh n’ a Half
It’s After Dark

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries