LIVE: THE LIVING END – Fremantle, 29 Nov 2025

LIVE: THE LIVING END – Fremantle, 29 Nov 2025
Fremantle Prison
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Luke Baker

As twilight settles over the Heritage listed Fremantle Prison, The Living End hit the ground running with a rip through recent single Alfie, followed by the effervescent Roll On.

There’s something about this venue which captivates not only crowds, but also touring artists, none of whom can fail to make mention of the joyous atmosphere which now inhabits these bare stone walls in abject contrast to the sad and often brutal goings on of years past.

The Living End choose to pay homage to the venue’s former life by revisiting a cover version that featured on their debut EP way back in 1997, From The Inside. Lynne Hamilton’s original slow ballad was the theme song for the Grundy TV series Prisoner (aka Prisoner: Cell Block H in the UK, and Caged Women in Canada), but on The Living End’s version their early punkabilly fingerprints are all over it.

This first set is dubbed “New Songs + Classics”, and it’s a real career overview – skipping their debut album, because that features in full as the second set, albeit slightly out of order.

We get favourites Pictures In The Mirror, Hey Hey Disbeliever, Nothing Lasts Forever, Who’s Gonna Save Us? and more, plus four from their new record I Only Trust Rock n’ Roll, including pinball homage Roller, Strange Place and set closer Misery.

Chris Cheney wields his white Gretsch like it’s a toy, making it swoop and holler with what he has previously labelled “twang, growl and AC/DC toughness,” and if they came from a similar place, inspiration wise, to The Stray Cats, then they turned their amps up to eleven and injected a volatile amount of nitro-glycerine into the mix.

Scott Owen likewise throws his double bass around like it’s a ukulele, spending almost as much time at altitude clambering up it as he does with his feet on the stage, all without missing a note, while Andy Strachan keeps the engine running like an octopus metronome.

Set two opens with a short documentary film about the band’s first album before launching into Prisoner Of Society, and if the crowd loved set one, they were obsessed by set two.

There’s not a still person in the joint through this high intensity, punky, underdog-championing classic – and if security wanted to move anyone along, they’d have done better to wait until the refrains of “we don’t need no-one to tell us what to do” were over and done.

Second Solution, Bloody Mary, Save The Day, All Torn Down and West End Riot are irrepressible classics, and the singing, screaming, shouting, jumping, whooping, hollering, dancing, pogoing, head shaking, fist pumping response attests to how much this album and this band mean to so many.

It’s a sweaty, exhausted crowd when the band retire from the stage, but both parties have just enough in the tank to do it all over again for two more: a riotous White Noise and Uncle Harry, finally bringing this huge show to a climax.

Can we do it all again next year with second album Roll On?

Set List:

Alfie
Roll On
Roller
Pictures In The Mirror
Hold Up
Prisoner (On The Inside)
Hey Hey Disbeliever
Nothing Lasts Forever
Strange Place
Who’s Gonna Save Us?
How Do We Know
From Here on In
Misery

Prisoner of Society
Growing Up (Falling Down)
Second Solution
Bloody Mary
Monday
Trapped
Save the Day
Have They Forgotten?
Fly Away
All Torn Down
I Want a Day
Sleep on It
West End Riot
Closing In

Encore:
White Noise
Uncle Harry

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries