Live Review: Graveyard Train, Suicide Swans, Cherrywood

It's Friday the 13th – the perfect night to be witnessing a band singing about things that go bump in the night – but first we're treated to a set by Melbourne outfit Cherrywood, the country-punk four-piece delivering a string of anthemic tales about hard-lovin' and even harder livin'. Their hillbilly aesthetic draws a hearty response, and they utilise ominous gang vocal harmonies not unlike tonight's headliners. Pentridge brings a decidedly Aussie tone to proceedings, and they finish strongly with the frantic hoedown romp Book Of Matches and the powerful Heavy Stones. A most excellent surprise.

Up next, Toowoomba-via-Brisbane quintet Suicide Swans bring a delectable slice of up-tempo country boogie to proceedings, the well-honed outfit seeming to get better with every appearance. They veer between the '70s Americana of yesteryear and a more contemporary strain like early The Felice Brothers, but on tracks like Great Divide, Jesse James and Jeremiah Joe they till their own fertile ground to great effect. It's cool how we have these genuinely great bands nestling in our midst who raise their heads occasionally to remind us how talented they are.

There's a large and well-lubricated crowd ready for action by the time the six members of Graveyard Train file onto stage and elicit their mass doom-choir skills, A Tall Shadow ushering in as hypnotic a groove as it's possible to manufacture when one of the guys (Adam Johansen) is smashing a chain with a hammer. Despite recent unrest in the ranks they display a notable camaraderie and during the harmonica-laden Ballad For Beelzebub a section of the crowd is holding their boots in the air like we're at Golden Plains or Meredith. Steel guitar player and co-frontman Beau Skowron is looking more and more deranged as the set drags on – his mad eyes and crazed demeanour evoking One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest – and the deep massed voices are almost orchestral (if Deadwood had an orchestra) as they move through Close The Book, Get The Gold and the stirring Life Is Elsewhere. As always, live fave I'm Gone lifts the rock quotient, and when they move onto the creepy-yet-boisterous One Foot On The Grave the crowd bangs their feet in unison so much that the floor literally starts to tremble, before restraint is restored with newbie Takes One To Know One and the moody Mary Melody. Chief vocalist Nick Finch seems genuine when he expresses how much they love playing in Brisbane and assures they'll be back soon, before they end with The Priest and the rousing Bit By A Dog. No encore is necessary – the crowd reciprocates Graveyard Train's love for Brissie completely and utterly already.