Live Review: Camp Cope, Cable Ties, Scabz, Cat Heaven

With the imminent closure of the Newtown Social Club, every gig feels like it's the last, so we make the most of it and a good crowd show up early for Cat Heaven.

This all-star three-piece, featuring Trischelle Roberts of Mere Women fame and other bands, play tight, well-wound post-punk. The tuning between each song is endearing and it highlights how seriously this band take their performance. Seriously rocking.

"We’re Scabz, the shittest band in Newtown!" It’s a great tagline, but they’re certainly not. Featuring their frenzied indie-punk songs about the Marrickville Metro, Straight Girls and Nice Boys, Shaz, Loz and Larz own the stage and the crowd. Nothing like some short, sharp, fun punk to warm us up.

Cable Ties take things up a notch: Jenny McKechnie is all of a sudden one of the fiercest vocalists of any band in the country. She wails with spitting intensity into the mic, "I am not a production unit, I am a human being!" A lot of our ears and eyes opened up to them during this outstanding set.

We are drawn towards Camp Cope like moths to a flame. The magnetic personality of Georgia, Kelly and Thomo translate into songs that are as personal as they are perfect snapshots of a woman living in today's world.

Georgia almost seems shy tonight, bashful of the adoration the crowd sends their way. She sings Flesh & Electricity with a personal tinge, all the while her eyes clasped shut. Kelly's bass-playing uniquely drives the melody. It's a component of their group that deserves praise, and she never skips a beat.

As always, the sound is perfect in the NSC, the crowd know all the words and are respectful, apart from an incursion of people on the stage near the end, and we are treated to one of Georgia’s solo tracks, Footscray Station, as an encore. An inspirational night of music from four bands that raise the bar for how good live Australian music can be.