Live Review: Catfish & The Bottlemen, Apes

Sunday night doesn’t usually lend itself to a big night in town, but a public holiday Monday is a pretty compelling argument to let one’s hair down.

Melbourne-via-Ballarat lads Apes try to get in on the act: “Who’s excited for Australia Day tomorrow?” The question gets a lukewarm response, so the four-piece quickly get stuck into their honest brand of rock’n’roll. Whoever was responsible for selecting Apes as Catfish &The Bottlemen support deserves a couple of reasonably priced drinks; the band’s sound is very similar to the headliners and gets everyone in the mood for a night of rock’n’roll. The Hi-Fi fills steadily during their 40-minute set as the band throw down tracks such as Helluva Time and Pull The Trigger.

There’s more than a smattering of British accents and soccer jerseys throughout the venue. Catfish & The Bottlemen open the set with Rango followed by crowd favourite Pacifier, which sees at least two wankers sitting on each other’s shoulders, doing their best to impede the view of the people behind. For their first Melbourne headline show, singer Ryan Van McCann immediately builds a rapport with his audience and with songs like Fallout and Business in their arsenal it’s no wonder that the Welsh four-piece have taken such massive strides in this country over the past year or so. There’s something about McCann that recalls The Vines’ Craig Nicholls and, while he acts as a focal point for the crowd, Catfish & The Bottlemen play with chemistry that would usually suggest a band with decades of experience. Musically, they’re not breaking the mould when it comes to kicking out indie-rock jams, but they please everyone in the venue and their confidence hints toward either a prolonged career or quick burnout. Either way, Catfish &The Bottlemen aren't going to die wondering. When McCann prefaces Kathleen with, “This song’s been played on triple j. Do you know triple j?” the crowd bays for riffage.

The band seem legitimately grateful to everyone for making it to their show and close with Cocoon (with a hint of Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark sprinkled in for good measure). Refreshingly, there’s no encore, although the flip side is that their entire set is wrapped up in at under an hour. Someone should have mentioned that there’s no school tomorrow and that a later finish would have been just fine.