Live Review: Shellac

We like to pretend that rock music has some immense, spectral force that transcends the physicality of playing. Nonsense, and when you're confronted with a man wrapping a guitar strap around his waist like a tool belt – implying the musical instrument is merely a means to craft something, to complete a task – it's almost refreshing to find someone that takes it seriously.

That man is Steve Albini, joined by Bob Weston and Todd Trainer; Shellac of North America to you and I. They are celebrating their 20^th year of existence by doing what they always do – play excellent shows every so often, when they feel like it – and Australia finally got to see them for the first time since their inception in 1993. So, we got Trainer bouncing drum sticks off of a snare drum, Albini screaming into his guitar pickups, Weston sidestepping across the stage after each short bass flurry, arms being outstretched while loudly claiming to be planes, Q&A sessions, and Albini's The Angels t-shirt getting flak from just about everyone. For a band who take the very basic building blocks of rock music and juice them for all their worth, jack-hammering chords, bass riffs, and drum patterns – at least until they burst pipes, diverting the metallic rumble into brief gasps of silence – they realise how ridiculous rock actually is. That sense of ridicule is in plenty of their songs; Squirrel Song, The Watch Song and Prayer To God all sounded as caustic and aggressive as their recorded counterparts, but they mock the listener who might take them at face value.

For attendees, a 19-year wait was fully compensated. Playing for a solid 20 minutes before any communication screamed value for money to start with; yet, the entertainment continued. If it wasn't the rippling, earthquake-teasing drums of Trainer, or the riff-ridden interplay of the other two that captured us, then perhaps it was the offbeat monologues, stories, and occasional put down of a heckler that kept us standing with wry smiles on our faces.

But, more likely, it was all of it: Albini and Weston slinking off stage to allow the incredible “handsomest man in rock” to spill fills across our faces; the stomach-punch dynamics that resemble tectonic prolapses; the sheer metal on metal screech of Albini's guitar; the hypnotic simplicity of Weston's girder-strength bass. This is rock music reduced down to its constituent parts and spread upon perfect syntax and creative use of punctuation. This is the language that has been distorted and cheapened for cheap thrills and money – nothing wrong with that necessarily, but Shellac bring us formidable tales in studied, interesting prose without all that.

If there's one negative, it was us: 19 years and all some of us could do was shout out songs. It's been a long wait but why waste it requesting songs from a trio so notoriously stubborn? Kudos to the guy who got on stage and stopped Weston's three note mantra during The End Of Radio; you probably gave us a few more minutes of that sublime test of devotion and patience as a result, as well as getting his most barbed response of the night in return. Seriously though audiences, stop being utter dicks.

Shellac are the antithesis of pretentiousness. They go in, get the job done to the best of their abilities, and have a laugh with, and at the expense of, those who paid to get in. They do it on their own terms and come off as exceptional.