Live Review: Hoodoo Gurus

It certainly takes dedication to arrive early enough to set your picnic blanket up close to the stage at Melbourne Zoo, but then these people get in the way and make the crowd oddly spaced out for tonight's headliner, Hoodoo Gurus. And punters greasing you off if you happen to tread on a corner of their precious blankey while dancing? Come on, now!

Hoodoo Gurus hit the stage in a flurry of snazzy printed shirts, warming us up gently with A Place In The Sun. They sound fantastic, but we wish the volume could be cranked up a few notches. (If it's for the safety of the animals, however, we completely understand.) The minute the shrill, sparse riffs that open Tojo kick in, the daggy dancing is in full swing. The band — comprising Dave Faulkner, guitarist Brad Shepherd, bassist Richard Grossman and drummer Nick Rieth — look delighted to be up there.

And the hits just keep on coming — Death Defying (with that fun, "Oo-Eeh!" part); Leilani with its insistent drum patterns; the exasperated beauty of Bittersweet; and the exuberant brilliance of Come Anytime. There's some glorious harmonies and Miss Freelove '69 takes us all back to some crazy party behaviour probably better left forgotten. Hoodoo Gurus songs stand up incredibly well live and the complexity of some of the arrangements is particularly noteworthy. The band's equal parts playful and rocking I Was A Kamikaze Pilot closes Hoodoo Gurus' main set. The band leave the stage but, since we're yet to hear Like Wow — Wipeout!, an encore is pretty much guaranteed.

And before long they're back with the irresistible What's My Scene. A collective wish is granted and Like Wow — Wipeout! follows, turning us into a feral mob ("I love the way you talk"/"Uh-ah-uh!"), let alone those crazy clapping breakdowns and screeching riffs — what a finish! (Or so we think at the time.) There's a bit of commotion up on stage and then, without further ado, legendary E Street Band guitarist, Steven Van Zandt, is welcomed to the stage. We immediately recognise Van Zandt's trademark do-rag and there's a rush to the front as punters scramble for smartphones to capture the moment. They launch into a spontaneous rendition of Pushin' Too Hard by The Seeds (which we later learn none of the musicians on stage had ever played before) and make magic up there, Van Zandt keeping a close eye on Faulkner's frets for a spell while Shepherd takes on vocal duty. What a treat! We mill around afterward, comparing notes and suspending the feeling that we just witnessed something incredibly special.