Live Review: Against Me!, Joyce Manor, Grim Fandango

An early turnout sees Grim Fandango setting the night off right. Slightly plagued early on by a bleeding mix, their indie-punk style turns the room with Nuclear Dreams and Too Punk To Drive to close what may be the band’s last showing for a hometown crowd.

Joyce Manor are fighting an uphill battle from the start, vocalist Barry Johnson appearing rather apathetic to proceedings. As quickly as the high-tempo pulse of Heart Tattoo and Violent Inside start swirling past a lacking stage presence, it dissipates into a room of awkward silence for tuning. A dozen swing-misses later, it takes early cut Leather Jacket to deliver the full stop on a forgettable showing.

The room instantly shifts when the anthemic strains of FUCKMYLIFE666 rain out from Against Me! fighting the stage. Laura Jean Grace delivers the sharpest of vocals with fire, passion and conviction, backed by a glowing charisma and endless enthusiasm that sends most every punter into a mandatory sing-along. Performing their first shows to our shores with their new rhythm section, arguably the best they’ve ever had, the band deliver a bevy of power-chord rises, three-part harmonies and earworm melodies. Wasting little time between takes, Cliche Guevara, Pints Of Guinness Make You Strong and I Was A Teenage Anarchist set a hard-and-fast strike as fan favourites that whip the front rows into a frenzy with even Grace herself asking the room “It’s fun right? It’s fucking fun?” While their latest record’s title track, Transgender Dysphoria Blues marks a more expansive sound from the band, it halts no momentum alongside the foot-stomping charge of Unconditional Love. An acoustic-led How Low and The Ocean set things perfectly for the explosion of True Trans Soul Rebel. Encores are usually inevitable, though completely warranted in this instance, Against Me! returning to deliver an impressive cover of The Replacements’ Androgynous, Grace once again strapping on her Rickenbacker for the final double-punch of Drinking With The Jocks and Sink, Florida, Sink. For a band that’s been through almost a dozen line-up changes over the last 17 years, they are the strongest they’ve ever been.