Live Review: Jesus Jones, The Killer Hipsters

Being internet savvy and quick to respond to a Facebook call for support acts served Perth garage bashers The Killer Hipsters well. By their own admission the four-piece (together just 18 months) are no spring chickens but their delight in cantankerous Sugar-like guitars and songs lurching from naming a brain tumour (Nigel) to lyrics from singer John Herrington’s seven year old son (Asian Holiday) were fun enough.

It’s nice to know despite a typically punishing short Aussie tour schedule, Jesus Jones keyboardist Iain Baker knew his cyclones, empathising with the story of your writer’s friend stranded in the Pilbara, unable to make tonight’s gig. Likewise, his frenetic energy saw him incapable of keeping rooted at his station, flurrying around and in front of the stage loving every bloody second. Here to perform second album, Doubt (now 24 years young), singer Mike Edwards congenially explained how several songs had to be retooled to be played live today, considering some of the noise-mash characteristics. Opener, Trust Me and the plane-crashing Stripped got reined in (by way of an infusion of dubstep) without losing any of their frisson. Megahit, Right Here Right Now, shockingly misfired, launched and remaining in the wrong key, making way for singles Real Real Real and Who? Where? Why? to be early highlights but it was the only bum note of the evening. Guitarist Jerry De Borg obliged a fan for a posed photo that snowballed - halting Welcome Back Victoria completely in the process - into a full band huddle. Hilarity ensued and the song continued unabated.

Enhanced with a techno-nutting intro, Bring It On Down shot us into a ballsy trip through their debut (Liquidizer) and third (Perverse) albums. When Edwards reminded us that the paranoid Zeroes & Ones was written at a time when the internet was becoming ‘a bit of an idea’, the song’s claim that “There’s those that have and that don’t in information wars” couldn’t have been more prophetic. What Would You Know again benefitted from a sprucing, amplifying its addictive pop hook and then they finished with the absolutely furious Idiot Stare, which would have consumed all remaining energies of lesser bands. The encore concluded with one-time skate-fucker anthem, Info Freako bringing it all back to where it started and leaving many to wonder how the hell Mike Edwards manages to look younger than when he was an international bright young thing.