Live Review: COG, Introvert, Oolluu

It's another hot night of live music in M-town. First up, Oolluu's swirling, surging synth-rock translates beautifully to this larger room. It's like they transform into a stadium band as the three-piece - which consists of bass, drums and an old-school keyboardist - to recreate their captivating instrumental magic for the audience. At times their sound resembles the soundtrack to some epic, '80s action-adventure movie while at others it comes across like Emerson, Lake & Palmer's iconic Fanfare For The Common Man, the background to a thousand sporting-highlights videos during the '70s and '80s - only Oolluu update it for the late 2010s. There is just enough prog in their music to keep aficionados of the genre happy while remaining upbeat and fun, and a gaze around at faces in the crowd reveals many big, cheesy grins. Australia has an illustrious, all-instrumental rock scene and this band is set to join the ranks of the Aussie vocal-free acts making serious waves overseas.

Newcastle's Introvert slam out a modern-grunge sound with great harmonies and possess a slightly more 'up' vibe than what you would normally associate with this genre. Even drummer Steven Hopkins looks and plays like a strikingly blonde Dave Grohl as he smashes out the groove, punctuating the beats with massive accents that are in perfect sync with the rest of the band. All this, when juxtaposed with the carefree looseness and abandon of punk-infiltrated grunge, makes for a rollicking, good 30-minute set and a seemingly disparate-but-ultimately highly appropriate lead-in to what follows. Underlying the grunge aesthetic is the fact that many of these types of bands write great, ultra-catchy songs and that is all that really matters as Introvert prove tonight.

Flynn Gower from COG announces that they asked venue management to turn the aircon off in The Croxton because "aircon and rock bands don't mix" and it all suddenly makes sense. Sweat literally pours off the wringing-wet band and crowd.

The River Song is a relatively low-key and slow-burning choice of opener for a COG set, but Bondi's favourite sons soon hit their stride and thunder through an almost 90-minute set of sublime COG favourites. Plus they treat us to the very promising, brand-new song The Middle, which translates beautifully to the live setting. Both of their iconic albums, 2005's The New Normal (a pumping, thumping My Enemy and a stirring Real Life being highlights) and 2008​'​s Sharing Space (The Town Of Lincoln and the emotional Bird Of Feather, but unfortunately no Bitter Pills) are very well represented and when you add in their slippery, driving version of Leftfield's Open Up you have yourself a supremely satisfying set for the sweat-soaked and sold-out crowd.

COG are an important band, not just for their powerful, cathartic music and scintillating live show, but also for the messages they put out into the world. It is wonderful to have them back writing and releasing music, and playing live again. The world needs more artists like COG, especially in this day and age of alternative-facts, post-truth politics.