Live Review: Nekromantix, Chainsaw Hookers, Blazin' Entrails

A Tuesday following a long weekend is always a tough gig, especially in Perth, but despite our much lauded 'early' summer coming to an abrupt end as the heavens opened there was still a decent but modest crowd amassed at the Rosemount for the return of Danish/American psychobilly drawcard Nekromantix. Perth doesn't seem to have the rockabilly/psychobilly scene it may have once had and even less so since Blazin' Entrails have called it a day, but not before opening one more time and doing so in style. The trio flew through a set of familiar tunes including Weekend At Bernies, Switchblade, Los Bastos and My Baby Is Possessed, and were in blistering form. It's a shame they won't be heard again in the foreseeable future. Hard rock stalwarts Chainsaw Hoookers were up next and they stood out like your creepy uncle at a wedding, but were a solid filling for the rockabilly sandwich.

Great psychobilly bands transcend the waves the genre has come in and the 23 years that Nekromantix have be wreckin' for is testament to how good this trio are. The line-up may be fresh, but the songs are Kim Nekroman's and he owns that band. The percussive onslaught that roars out of his custom 'coffinbass' drives every Nekromantix track and, with the new drummer Lux settled in, that all important rhythm section is on fire. It seemed that new guitarist Franky Mesa was having an off night, but his downtime with guitar problems left Nekroman and Lux to fool around with the crowd and improvise with the dearth of rhymes for Perth. The second half of the set saw the band in full flight and psycho stompers like Alice In Psycholand were interspersed with moodier tracks like Nekrofelia. Those two were crowd favourites drawn from the band's early '90s releases, but newer cuts like Subcultural Girl were welcomed later in the set. Gargoyles Over Copenhagen made it into a brief encore and Nekroman coaxed out some passable crowd participation before a long-long weekend drew to an end.