Live Review: Bleeding Knees Club - Northcote Social Club

We stand next to a couple with matching bouncing and behaving hair in the public bar. After complimenting them and enquiring as to whether they might have shared a hair dryer, said couple gush about Drunk Mums. They were first band off the rank tonight and a mental note is made to check them out next time. My companion is curious to hear football results and believes it's a safe bet to ask the bouncer. “Port Melbourne won, or Port Adelaide – I dunno.” We report him to his superior since updated knowledge on such matters is surely a job requirement. 

There's lots of rambunctious young things assembling in front of the bandroom stage for probably the loosest act going around – both musically and behaviourally – Bleeding Knees Club. Many will lose their crowd-surfing virginity tonight. The band's frontman Alex Wall arrives on stage wielding a guitar with a picture of bald Britney stuck to it and needs some tech assistance. “Who's good at music?” he asks of the crowd. They sport matching superhero-style capes; fun is definitely on the menu. The blondey, Jordan Malane, plays bass with concentration and Wall's vocal is screechy and obnoxious yet completely suits the whole slacker vibe. In-between song banter is sparse, featuring such song intros as, “Ay, let's play a song,” or, “This one's called Nothing To Do. It's about Hobart tomorrow.”

Although BCK's members stay relatively fixed to the spot throughout their set, the crowd resemble lunatics who have escaped the asylum – there's flying elbows, boots and beers. The whole venue's a mosh pit and the three little punk rockers onstage are loving it. Wall baits security (“starting to tell me what to do, like the police”) and things get so mental that this scribe feels compelled to check on our photographer's wellbeing via text message. Drummer Brett Jansch does a cracking job harnessing the madness and providing a constant beat to pogo and surge along with/against. Bad Guys is a highlight, as is the sight of I Oh You (BKC's label) bossman, Johann Ponniah, crowd surfing (literally) on a boogie board. You know exactly what you're getting from a song called Beach Slut, but the song structure with its serenading verses and thrashy choruses is the perfect opportunity for the crowd to regroup amid detonations. As many bodies as possible invade the stage for Bleeding Knees Club's closing tracks and a venue of this size is perfect for their steez.

A piece of advice a friend offered over lunch proves a fitting quote to summarise this Gold Coast band's ethos: “Just do whatever and see what happens.” Bleeding Knees Club are all about spontaneity and raw enthusiasm. Don't go changin'.