Live Review: Record Store Day

Cupcakes and a multitude of exclusive purchases at Jet Black Cat; flicking through crates at the Record Exchange; queues outside Rocking Horse; hordes hanging outside Tym Guitars – the annual International Record Store Day is an exciting event across Brisbane, reigniting the love of the physical article, the gatefold, the coloured wax, and the lifelong friendships that comes with the search.

Kicking off a full day of live music at Tym Guitars is frenetic garage slopcarts Cannon, driven as always by the maniacal yowls and yelps of frontman Callan. The five-piece provide the perfect irreverent beginnings to such a day, offering genuinely funny quips and asides in between chugging beers and ripping through a set that includes Girls, Never Again and a couple new songs such as Pitiful to boot.

Next up is Roku Music, whose ever-expanding music range encompasses some shoegaze wash in the form of a MBV cover, offering sonorous noise to fit in with the unease and abrasion. Steve Brooks is brutal on the drums, ensuring that every track has one foot rooted in the realms of metal, yet it's the quieter moments between Innez Tulloch and Donnie Miller that transfixes – an alluring calm before the inevitable squall.

Bruce! are from Wollongong, wearing matching black collared shirts with the band's name emblazoned on the front, and they write songs about drug busts and stealing money, managing to straddle balls-to-the-wall simplicity and early QOTSA worshipping whilst retaining a distinctly Australian edge. The laconic group proclaim this to be the strangest crowd they've ever played to (but also the earliest they've ever played, and the least drunk they've been). It all works, and a roaring Misfits cover rounds out the bill.

Midnight Woolf represent the unabashed vintage '60s garage rockabilly aspect of the day, their bristling, irreverent set focusing on fun with a capital F. They reclaim Van Morrison's Gloria “for the Mongolians”, threaten to “skin you alive” and are brilliant entertainment throughout. The Sanchez brothers know no bounds, the set finishing with Raul crawling around on the floor on all fours before laying his guitar on the ground and relentlessly fucking it for over half a minute. No need for the birds and bees when you have the Woolf.

The only disappointing set is from Perth's Emperors, whose practiced indie rock doesn't sit well with the rest of the acts on show. The quartet is polished and earnest, yet the quasi-pop punk doesn't gel, despite their best efforts.

Leave it to The Nation Blue to bring everything to a cataclysmic close. Being the trio's only show in Queensland for the year, there's high anticipation, and the boys don't disappoint. The self-deprecating banter gives way to brutality, self-flagellation and despair, all voiced with chagrin dissolving into fury. Mics are discarded, guitars hit heads, spit flies, rally cries are aired. Tom Lyngcoln punctuates the end of a blistering set by slamming his guitar into the ceiling, an indelible full stop on what has been a brilliant day of mutual celebration. Long live the record store!