Live Review: The Presidents Of The United States Of America, Hey Geronimo & Lilly Rouge

With the frustrating abundance of shows in Brisbane on Friday, Time Off heads south to catch the '90s most unlikely success story, The Presidents Of The United States Of America revisit their somewhat-seminal debut album. Upon walking into the venue, we're greeted with the guitar crunch of Gold Coast rockers Lilly Rouge. With the home ground advantage, the band quickly have the crowd whipped into a weird hybrid of club style dancing and moshing before Brisbane's Hey Geronimo take over. Embracing the evening's good time spirit with a cover of Talking Heads' Burning Down The House, the band's pop quirks set the stage for a decidedly quirky pop band.

The Presidents Of The United States Of America are truly a silly band. But no one here tonight is questioning the pointlessness of songs about insects, malevolent postal workers or vengeful Hawaiian tikis; they accept the inherent absurdism of it all, immerse themselves in it. The Presidents Of The United States Of America never were a logical thing, but a band that at its heart was about pure, unadulterated fun. It doesn't seem any more incongruous when Chris Ballew, Jason Finn and Andrew McKeag start singing songs about hotted-up roadsters (Mach 5) or an all-encompassing love for humankind (Love Everybody). The band hits these post-self-titled cuts with unyielding enthusiasm and the crowd responds with broad smiles and a surprising degree of animation – this isn't another one of those shut up and play the hits show. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Ballew announces that the band hasn't played a single song off their debut record, and that the band should correct the 'drastic oversight' by playing it from start to finish.

With the whole crowd accompanying Ballew through the opening lines of the record – Kitty's “Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow”, The Presidents Of The United States Of America kick off the debut album part of the show in fine form. All the big hits are present and accounted for, and to the Presidents' credit they never feel tired or stale, no small feat considering the mid-late '90s ubiquity of cuts like Lump and Peaches. Ballew and his crew just seem to be having fun on stage, to be able to play these goofy, ultra-catchy rock songs seems to tickle them. And yet despite the simplicity of tracks like Dune Buggy and Boll Weevil, The Presidents manage to fill the room with sound. The trade off between Ballew and McKreag's two and three stringed guitars booms from the PA while Finn's drums sound incredibly punchy.

Even if their encore fails to hold the crowd's attention after stellar numbers like Naked And Famous, The Presidents Of The United States Of America's set is a resounding triumph.

Check out an exclusive video of The Preseidents of The United States Of America performing in our Sydney office while they were here on tour.