Live Review: Truckfighters, Filthy Lucre, Inwoods

Truckfighters brought out positive colours in the Ramsgate.

They proved that the unlikely destination for live music is serious about booking international talent and providing high-quality sound for all those stegglers out there. When you bring the space close to capacity and combine it with two of Adelaide’s prime support acts you have one of the best gigs in January, no doubt about it.

Inwoods were sounding monstrous on this Wednesday evening, clearly benefitting from the lengthy sound-check a band can take advantage of when taking the reins on an international support. Their most recent track, Mirage, is an absolute stomper and Inwoods embody their music perfectly. It’s also funny to notice that from right to left, the band members are subject to an increasing amount of on stage movement, with Jordan Buck only moving practically to strum his guitar and nod the head slightly, while Kif Kelly is almost bursting out of his trousers on the opposing side. It’s a sobering juxtaposition.

Filthy Lucre proved why they’re one of the most popular and fast-rising bands in Adelaide at the moment, having grown miles musically as composers and performers. In the time since winning the Seaford Battle of the Bands in 2013, they’ve found their own niche and no longer come across as a Black Keys rip-off, their riffage developing into its very own kind of beast. The use of a cigar box guitar during tracks such as Eric Bana also makes for a delightful variance in their sound, while their onstage personae are nothing short of lovable.

Truckfighters took the stage and proceeded to envelop the audience with their vapidly foreign take on stoner rock, taking the genre to places unheard of by our predominately Western ears. The band’s onstage presence was sporadic and it’s a miracle guitarist Niklas ‘Dango’ Källgren didn’t scalp himself by leaping into the ceiling fan that was spinning at full pace above his head. Andre ‘Poncho’ Kvarnström proved to be an absolute powerhouse on the drums, with relentless fills and ultra-tight grooves rolling endlessly under the reverberating bass and soothing vocals of Oskar ‘Ozo’ Cedermalm. With their shorter songs being head-bang inducers and their longer songs epic conceptual journeys it was to much delight that Dango climbed atop the bar to shred a two-minute guitar solo, and that the band was then harassed by the crowd into playing a near five-song encore. Fuck yeah!