Live Review: The Aints, Harry Howard & The NDE, The Holy Soul

Wait, Radio Birdman t-shirts at a Saints-related gig? The 16-year-old punk me would be horrified. That’s like wearing a Roosters jersey in Redfern (for readers in AFL states that’s kinda like sporting a Collingwood jumper in…well, er, anywhere but Collingwood).

But through time and attrition, the old rivalries have softened, much like the abs and waistlines of the people wearing them. But as if to show many of us up, Aints’ leader Ed Kuepper is obviously match-fit, his hands a blur across those matching Gibsons as he explains he’s here “…to pay homage from one of my favourite bands from the olden days”. You know, the one he formed and changed the world with. 

The Holy Soul are from a couple of generations on, but they’d listened. Maybe because of their limited time, they’re running on rails more than their occasional tendency to get a bit of a bluesy sprawl about them. Kate Wilson’s specs surprisingly staying in place as she flails at the drums, howls like Precious are cast to a room that’s filling as quickly as middle-aged legs can get up those stairs.    

Meantime, Harry Howard & The NDE are from somewhere in between. There’s that grimy Melbourne damp and dankness to them – there’s drownings and near-drownings in The Lake, admissions that things are Sick Sick Sick, but it’s all a little less arch and posed than some of those barnet-haired blackclad who probably still don’t realise Harry’s legendary wraith of a brother, Rowland S., was actually taking the piss at least some of the time. Throw in a rhythm section of no less than Lord Dave Graney and Clare Moore, along with Edwina Preston’s squelchy ‘60s organ and countering vocals, and it is what it is. And will be.

But you’re still not quite prepared for the surge of racket as The Aints plunder The Saints’ back catalogue, with some asides. So, you’re gonna start with unfurling and epic Messin’ With The Kid? OK, we’re in. Thing is, the later albums of Saints v1.0 were never really performed to anything like their full due, and here everything is bigger than those trebly AM radio speaker memories. Erstwhile Sunnyboy Peter Oxley’s bass is thumping though the floor, and Kuepper himself a guitarist of far more dynamics than the simpler adrenaline fever of back when. With an attached brass section blurting through, is Know Your Product mere ‘punk’ anymore, if it ever was? Probably not, but it’s still a helluva song.

But here it’s still more about craving the familiar: the immediately identifiable intro to I’m Stranded provoking outbreaks of dancing, some of a slightly arthritic nature.  But Kuepper’s scribbles of guitar are often still mesmerising, particularly when Swing For The Crime opens the encore – it being one of those that was certainly never played live to this level. And it’s huge as the sax, trumpet, and trombone centre it, and probably worth the price of admission alone. A final full tilt charge at River Deep Mountain High has Edmund announcing what a good time he’s had revisiting these songs. Audience agreement is pretty obvious.