Live Review: The Love Junkies, Mt Mountain, Puck, Horror My Friend, Sprawl

When people talk about local music within the rock genre, The Love Junkies are always right in the thick of the conversation. They’ve proven to be one of the most consistent and well grounded bands within the local community over the past five years and their presence on a national level continues to grow.

As such, there was no way that less than ideal weather was going to deter punters heading down to the Rosie on Saturday night for the launch of the group’s second album, Blowing On The Devil’s Strumpet. Kicking things off was the ever-lively Sprawl, who entertained the early birds with distorted guitar lines, plenty of sing-shrieking and the occasional bit of spirited trumpet playing. 

Adelaide’s Horror My Friend took a more melodic approach to their playing, which proved to be a good mix in retrospect, but they still had that grunge element that fitted in with the rest of the bill. By the time Puck took to the stage, the room was heaving and there was barely enough room to move around towards the front. The group were definitely taking on a ‘cool’ approach to their set that night, with the frontman donning sunglasses the entire set and the guitarist wearing what looked like a rice hat. They did all they could to kick up the tempo and increase the energy levels, and the crowd positively lapped it up.

Mt Mountain slowed things down a little with their winding psychedelic rock sounds, and although the impact on the crowd wasn’t as profound, it did create that calm before the storm effect, and my goodness, if ever there was one, The Love Junkies certainly brought it in with an explosive set on their home turf. From the get-go, the crowd were losing it – it didn’t matter that quite a few of the songs were fresh and previously unheard, the reaction was the same; people were throwing themselves around and crowdsurfing all over the place. Lead single, Television received a roar of approval, but it wasn’t until they were demanded to play an encore by the rowdy audience that they launched into the final track of the new record, Chemical Motivation, which has had plenty of live play and has become a fan favourite.

With both band and audience finishing off the night screaming “She sucked the life right out of me!”, it was the perfect ending to an intense evening and showed that everyone’s favourite locals are showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.