Live Review: Clowns, Night Birds, TRS, Two For Flinching

Perth's Two For Flinching kicked off the night in the pop punk party fashion they are well known for. With plenty of shows under their belts in 2017, the group led by singer/guitarist and all round nice guy Matt Hatton have become a much tighter ship and a very healthy early crowd seemed to enjoy every minute of the ruckus.

Margaret River thrash lords TRS were a late inclusion on the bill and a most welcome one. Clocking up just about a song a minute, singer Karl Heussenstamm's lightning fast vocal delivery is cleverly perfectly audible throughout every song. No stranger to a bit of banter in between, TRS is a thrash powerhouse raising horns up with the likes of Municipal Waste, and a healthy dose of street punk thrown in. Every punter's eyes were glued to the boys from Marg's as they shredded their way through about 20 songs like a magic marker through a ten-foot sheet of butcher's paper, which seems to be of no short supply as the band stomped all over their set list on which it was written.

All the way from America, Night Birds had a buzz about them in the room all night. Most punters had only heard whispers of them, and with every well-oiled punk rocker in the room front and centre, I had a feeling more than a few of them were about to get their faces torn off, and they did! Night Birds may be from New Jersey, but they sound like they are from SoCal; they are a relatively new band, but they sound like they have time travelled from 1985. Night Birds seem to not give one fuck about pushing the boundaries of punk rock; they instead sit in the groove of everything we love about it, treat it like it was always theirs to begin with, and craft out their own little perfect piece of punk rock pie, feeding it song by song to a drooling audience.

Clowns are no strangers to Perth, or The Boston for that matter, and we are lucky enough that the band did not hesitate to bring their furious, modern, hardcore (but not hardcore) punk-tinged rock'n'roll over to us without hesitation, and the crowd seemed very thankful to the lads for that! Clowns are just coming off a world-defeating European tour of their new album Lucid Again, which has quickly seen the likes of Rolling Stone magazine and others propping it up as one of the best punk rock albums of the year. With an undoubtedly more mature sounding record under their belts, Clowns' unrelenting commitment to touring has seen them become a juggernaut of a live band, with every member viciously poised and ready to step up and give absolutely everything to the performance. You simply can't ask for a better live show than what Clowns deliver. Singer Stevie Williams' voice has never sounded more savagely beautiful as he screams and sings with perfect delivery.

Come back soon Clowns, Perth loves you.