Live Review: Iceage, Cobwebbs, Occults

The numbers at The Brightside tonight may be small, but the sense of excitement is pervasive. Tonight’s headliners have put out two great albums and are in Australia for the first time. How could it not be great?

Occults do a fine job of whetting the appetite of the crowd with their swampy indie-punk played with a demeanour that’s as dark as a midnight black mass.  

Cobwebbs keep the mood going by serving up waves of dark psych-rock feedback that roll, rather than crash, over the audience.

Then it’s Iceage… Did Iceage come all the way from Denmark just to fuck with whoever turned up at their first-ever Australian shows? That’s the question that becomes more and more prevalent as the indie-punk poster boys veer through their set that features entirely from their third, and yet-to-be-released album, Plowing Into The Field Of Love. It’s a move that’s fantastic in its conception and frustrating in its execution. When the four-piece take the stage they embody the nihilism and disaffection dripping from their earlier records – throughout the whole set there’s not even the slightest hint that they may be enjoying themselves. And there’s a compelling watchability in their aura of misery. There’s something in watching the sweat pour down vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s pallid face while he continues to wear a trench coat and missteps against the foldback and staggers across the stage. Or listening to how the dead-eyed singer nonchalantly garbles his way through Forever, the first single off the new album, perhaps the only song many in the crowd have heard before. Or how bassist Jakob Tvilling Pless spends most of the time turned to face the drummer. Because what’s the point of facing the crowd anyway?

One of the most powerful moments of the night arrives when a crowd member calls out a request for White Rune from 2011’s New Brigade and the suggestion is summarily dismissed by Rønnenfelt with nothing more than a very small shake of the head. In this interaction, it becomes entirely apparent Iceage are not going to do anything to please anybody. Why should they try and please others when they themselves appear so morose?

It’s all well and good to wax intellectual about the importance of displays of this nature – how in an age of immediate gratification, denial becomes such a precious commodity – when the record label has put you on the doorlist for the show. But if you were to shell out a 50 for the privilege, you might walk out of The Brightside tonight feeling a little pissed off. Because, yes, there’s a masochistic thrill to having a band roll into town and take a shit on you, but then, a band has still taken a shit on you.