Live Review: Die! Die! Die!, The Go Roll Your Bones, Sweeth Teeth

Thursday nights are always pretty quiet at The Standard, but this week we rocked up expecting noise. Initially disappointed by the relatively empty room, I had to remind myself that 8:30pm might have been a tad early to expect quality rioting. Eager to see headliners Die! Die! Die! at their second show in Australian promoting the new album, Harmony, we made our way across the room where we found a table close to the stage and settled in (and got excited) for some loud beats, heavy drums, muddy guitar and blaring vocals.

Proving that a hot chick can drum just as well as the next guy, Sweet Teeth opened up the show to a scattered but keyed-up audience, delivering some quality garage pop rock and a few songs that may need some moral justification.

After a short but sweet (teeth) set, Sydney band, The Go Roll Your Bones took over and several minutes of sound checking later asked the crowd to be “a bit more like family”, shuffling them closer to the stage. This was to the congregation's benefit as the attractive foursome belted out raw rock'n'roll that lingered through psychedelic and pleased both the boys and girls in the crowd with Geordie Cargill's beautifully sinister vocals.

DIE! DIE! DIE! hit the stage promptly at 10:45pm, by which time the room was more or less full, bustling with an animated and surprisingly unisex crowd, proving that the New Zealand punk rockers dissuade no gender (or that Sydney chicks are just damn rad). The trio, with their minimalistic setup - Michael Prain on drums, Andrew Wilson on guitar and newby Michael Logie on bass - got straight into it playing through the first two songs without a break, as the crowd slowly edged nearer to the front of the stage until they were finally head-banging as the punk lords intended.

Wilson exclaimed, “We haven't played Sydney in such a long time and it's our favourite fucking place! And that's the truth!” before diving into the third song from their new album. Wilson spent the set jumping between the dancefloor and the stage, whipping his mic around and after a while lassoing the crowd together, much to their content.

Their stripped-back, simplistic punk rock style was perfectly displayed in their performance of Harmony - to which the crowd formed a solid mosh with some amped-up girls throwing themselves into the mix with no fear.

Thanking the fans for “putting up with us for a million years”, Wilson set his mic stand in the centre of the dancefloor and, dripping with sweat, bellowed from the ground for (what was planned to be) their last song. The crowd assembled around him, forming a moshing circle of sorts, taking turns singing into his mic and excitedly throwing themselves around.

Thanking the crowd, Wilson returned to the stage in preparation of an exit, but the fans had other ideas. Taking the mic from the floor, one guy spoke into it exclaiming “one more!”. Seconds later another yelled out “two more!” then another “twelve more!” until the band conceded saying “alright thanks for having us” and played through another two songs. Moshing reached its most intense with a couple of girls knocked straight to the ground, but, the troopers that they were, bounced straight back up and back in.

Wilson utilised the rest of the stage for the last songs, attempting to climb a speaker but not getting very far with a short cord. The band came together once more on stage, Prain looking like a wet zombie and Logie excitedly dishevelled, finished the roaring set and thanked their fans. The sweat-covered crowd, quite pleased with themselves and the band's performance, dispersed rapidly into the corners of the room, amped up but exhausted, not quite ready to face a Friday.