Live Review: Violent Soho, Dog Dreams, Ceres

Who sells out on a Tuesday? The venue, decked in the austere trappings of a small punk hall, is full. A man in his late 20s with a snap-back and red flanno that he’s worn open to reveal a “Grunge is Dead” T-Shirt is drumming his tattooed fingers against the hardwood bar in uneasy anticipation. The local supports (Dog Dreams, Ceres) are good but can’t work the crowd. This is not their failing, they’re just not the headline act that people have driven across the state to see. This is the band of the year in Tasmania. People who saw them twice this year (at Falls Festival in Marion Bay and for UTas O-week) have bought tickets again, weekday be damned. After what feels like hours of craned necks, Violent Soho finally step on to stage behind the low metal barrier. It feels like a roman orgy before the clothes come off.

Rapturous applause shakes the mid-city hotel and within a minute the first crowdsurfers bob against the low roof. Singer Luke Boerdam seems unfazed except for a slight laugh that finds space between the anthemic chorus of the band’s first number, Dope Calypso. From there, things escalate quickly. There’s a frothy shower of beer being thrown in the air and the crowdsurfers are constant. By the end of the first number, Boerdam shares a look of incredulous confusion with his bandmates and asks the crowd to let some people out who have been getting hurt from the Violent Soho mosh. The stern warning does nothing however to curb the crowd’s enthusiasm. The game of the night is human tennis as volley after volley of crowdsurfers are pushed over the barrier only to be thrown (not kicked out, mind) back in by good-humoured Brisbane Hotel security.

One standout of just how lovingly rough the crowd were is a glimpse of a kid, freshly 18 at best. He’s off to the side of the stage behind the barrier, having been pulled out with a broken nose. I notice him, tissues stained dark and shoved ineptly up his nostrils, blood dripping onto his Violent Soho T-shirt as he head bangs to In the Aisle with a smile on his face. Tasmanians love punk.

The four-piece Brisbane post-hardcore/pop-punk/grunge outfit do much to further the cause of good, polished and catchy party-punk, lyrics are often focused on empowering the listener, “I want to pop this pill, because I’m a free man. Let’s start a fire…” and riffs as chunky and catchy as the best Mudhoney or Rancid offered. It’s hard not to want to throw yourself around in reckless abandon to the cymbal crashes. Just like the original wave of verse-chorus-quiet-loud bands the music can be repetitive, and the progression obvious, but this is something to celebrate in a live environment. They stir a hidden frenzy within their audiences, and have for years. That’s who sells out a Tuesday in Hobart.