Live Review: You Am I Metro Theatre

Perhaps 'tis the season, but gathering the You Am I clan can sometimes resemble a Christmas dinner with a thousand of your nearest and dearest. There's Uncle Tim, sometimes a bit curmudgeonly, but all velvet jacket flourishes from the theatrical side of the family. Cousin Russell is up under the Hills Hoist with a couple of longnecks — grinning, telling stories. Andy is somebody's brother-in-law, watching the cricket and knowing the averages of the entire New Zealand bowling attack. And nephew Davey, the aunties clucking over how "...he's grown up into such a handsome young man."

The Delta Riggs are the family tearaways. They've probably got another party on somewhere, but seem undecided whether to go as 1974 Mott The Hoople or The Libertines circa 2003. Singer Elliott Hammond is terribly rock: so-skinny jeans, biker jacket, sunglasses at night. They swagger big, but occasionally appear like they're trying really hard to do so. And Elliott maybe should learn the fine line between being David Johansen and becoming Brian Mannix. Don't get that wrong.

Rock and roll is simple: "It's music for fucking, dancing, or commiseration," Tim Rogers informs us. You Am I cover all those bases. Opening with the one-two punch of new tracks Good Advices and Bon Vivant, the eternal old stuff/new stuff argument just doesn't seem to occur. This is tight, loud, take-no-shit You Am I with little let-up in power and volume. Saturday Night 'Round Ten and Sound As Ever are in among a goodly chunk of the new Porridge & Hotsauce album, notably the Davey Lane-led Out To The Never, Now and Buzz The Boss, which Rogers enjoys like a proud parent — with the bonus of letting him be just the guitar player rather than carrying the whole enterprise. The setlist is the usual smattering of hits with more fan favourite album cuts — although Heavy Heart gets a piano bar treatment as a two-hander between Rogers and keyboardist Stevie Hesketh. Suitably shimmying backing singers, a couple of the numerous Wolfgramm Sisters, offer all the right moves for Get Up and a surprising run at The Small Faces' Tin Soldier. The obligatory Berlin Chair gets windmilled to the end, the crowd exits typically around 80% happy — only grumbling about favourites that didn't make the cut. Some of which they'll likely play next time round. It's OK, we'll be here.