Somebody New
Darling
Primitive
Flowers
Water Underground
Green Aisles
Paper Clip
Younger Than Yesterday
Haunted World
Say No More
Interior
Crime
Talking Backwards
Suburban Dogs
Freeze Brain
Had to Hear
Stained Glass
Saturday
It’s Real
Volume Festival returned to Sydney this July. A little earlier than 2023, but very welcome. My show of the festival was to witness the icon Kim Gordon on Friday night in the Art Gallery of NSW. The setting was the underground The Tank. A unique space for sure, dark and mysterious. Although the number of poles didn’t help for great sight lines. Gordon of course was a member of the legendary Sonic Youth and is now forging her own solo career. Earlier this year she released a wonderful album in ‘The Collective’ and in fact her set included every song from that superb album. It was a relatively short set, but a furious one. Gordon and her four piece band pounded through that album as well as a few songs from her debut album. It was a great set with her abrasive industrial tinged guitar rock banging loud through the cavernous space. Gordon is aging extremely well. Her music is vital and strong and vibrant. Powerful stuff.
Thirty years go Sleater-Kinney played their first ever show in Sydney. Tuesday night in Sydney the legends returned. Carrie Brownstein reminded us of this last night. Last here 8 years ago they produced an exciting and thrilling show, conclusively proving they have lost nothing at all. Their energy and spirit is certainly intact. This was billed as their 'Little Rope' tour, in regard to releasing that album in January. I think the album is pretty great, their best in years. So it was a great pleasure to hear 8 of the 10 tracks played. They sounded great live, especially 'Untidy Creature' and 'Small Finds'. Of course with a large catalogue they have plenty more to choose from. So many standouts on the night. 'One More Hour' was my personal highlight, a firebrand of a song. But I also loved 'Price Tag', 'Bury Our Friends', 'The Center Won't Hold' and 'Jumpers'. The two founding members are as great as ever. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker have great energy and synergy and Tucker's voice is still a weapon, one of the greatest voices in rock history. Their encore was great too and a little different. They played a real old one in 'Slow Song' upon an audience request and then closed with the classic rocket in 'Entertain'. Sleater-Kinney are still as great as ever I am here to tell you.
Last night in Sydney marked the first ever Australian show for Current Joys. It was the first stop on a brief three city run around Australia. If Sydney was any indication then fans in Melbourne and Brisbane are definitely in for a treat. The band played for close to a hundred minutes, with energy and verve to a sold out Factory Theatre. I actually only came to Current Joys in 2021 when they released their excellent album in 'Voyager'. It was easily one of my favourite albums of that year. Last year they returned with 'LOVE + POP', which expanded even further on their sound. It was bolder and brassier, but still very good. For this show they actually only drew a little on those two albums. 'American Honey' and 'Amateur' were played from 'Voyager'. Quietly I wished there was more. Bu the band drew on lots of songs from their entire catalogue. And here was the thing that surprised me. This was an All-Ages gig and the crowd was very young. I could easily say I was the oldest one there. And they were massively into their older songs. I later found out that the band have created a following to some songs being exposed on Tik-Tok, so those songs were greeted with screaming and great rapture. Especially 'Blondie', which everyone seemed to know the words to. Phones were in the air and it was quite a scene. So it was certainly a night with a difference. An exciting and at times thrilling one.