Live Review: You Am I

This reviewer has roughly seen 10,000 bands. A hundred good ones. A dozen great ones.

And one You Am I.

And this night, a sense of occasion, as your favourite band played the two records that mean so much too so many. Most present had such an investment in Hourly, Daily and/or Hi Fi Way Tim Rogers probably didn't need to sing at all – we knew the words anyway.

Some quibbled these recitals occurring in reverse order – discussions of the albums' relative merits went on endlessly at nearby bars – before and after the show. But Hourly, Daily is an arc, an entity. Coloured with brass, cello and video backdrops of the inner-west Sydney it is so much a part of, there's even greater resonance merely because you're there. “This song was written about 12 minutes' walk from here,” as Rogers reflected at one point. There were a hundred couples in the audience who were those puzzled lovers of If We Can't Get It Together. How many of them there were still together is another question entirely. We'll avoid those now exes in the interval, as the band dispensed with the scarves and checkered pants look for the second act.

For Hi Fi Way is a rock'n'roll record, played by a magnificent rock'n'roll band, in increasingly sweat-soaked t-shirts. A wave of volume and electricity went through the place as Jewels And Bullets roared. Those not entirely lost in the moment marvelled at just how good Russell Hopkinson is as the cymbals shimmered and splashed, while Andy Kent's bass strolled, beating like a heart. Davey Lane was a young rooster strutting. Purple Sneakers was still every inner-west girl you've kissed. And How Much Is Enough? provided the perfect full-stop.

Encore? Sure. A divebombing Sound As Ever, a sprawling (literally and figuratively) Young Man Blues, Berlin Chair's sparkle and shatter. Plus thanks, and advice from that guy with the guitar and the blue crushed-velvet trousers: “Take risks. Get out of your comfort zone. Fuck yourself up.” And, “Be excellent to each other”. In turn, Rogers promises this band “will keep making mistakes for you”. Long may they do so.