With the annual German festival Schützenfest happening down the road at Ellis Park and road closures in the East End, with the imminent start of the Tour Down Under, Jive didn’t have to do much to look like an appealing option to a lot of people on Saturday night.
As it happened, the venue played host to three bands specialising in thrilling, noisy guitar rock.
The sun hadn’t even properly set when first support, locals Damned Men, came on. The band played a pretty heavy set of loud punk and getting those who were there early into the right mood.
They seemed to be having a ball too, telling the crowd they had to choose between buying their EP at the merch stand or buying each individual member a beer.
The lights went all the way down for next support in the form of fellow Adelaide band Ride Into The Sun. The band emphasised their trippy visuals, which had a pretty disparate, disorienting effect. Although it was unclear whether this was intended or not, the band’s music was rock solid.
Although it felt like their keyboardist could be utilised more, they played an unassumingly solid set of shoegazing indie rock. Their quieter music however, would have perhaps been better placed at the start of the night whilst the crowd was still getting warmed up for the heavier sounds of the main act.
It was a bit after 10pm when A Place To Bury Strangers came on in complete darkness, letting their copious amount of projectors do the work.
Needless to say, right from the opening note, it was clear the band – with lead singer/guitarist Oliver Ackermann rounded off with Dion Lunadon on bass and Robi Gonzalez on drums – were loud.
As in, ‘your ears will be ringing for another 48 hours’ loud. And from Ackermann – who runs an effect pedal company called ‘Death By Audio’ – you would expect nothing less.
Beginning with ‘It Is Nothing’ off of their 2009 album Exploding Head, the band were the picture of professionalism and sounded tight as hell. But it was clear that the music was only part of the overall package.
With nine projectors in total, the band’s use of visuals was nothing short of breathtaking – with vivid, swirling, and hypnotic kaleidoscopes playing on all walls of the venue.
After about 50 minutes, the deafening post-punk band finally gave the crowd what they came for: unadulterated guitar porn.
With a gorgeously extended version of ‘Ocean’, Ackermann went into full on white noise-mode, and let his rhythm section be his anchor.
Turning off all projectors, save two strobe lights to illuminate the band, Ackermann proceeded to do all sorts of harm to his guitar.
Dragging the strobe across his guitar neck, his Fender Jaguar looked at times like it was about to catch fire. Detuning it heavily, tossing it across the stage, tinkering with his pedals, turning his monitors onto the crowd, and placing his vocal microphone onto his guitar amp; the feedback was at times unbearable – and the crowd loved every minute of it.
For a frontman who was in the dark for most of the night, it was pleasing to see this kind of showmanship.
Whilst Ackermann kept the crowd banter at next to nothing, he and his seasoned band were obviously committed to providing an overwhelming and immersive experience for their fans.
