The Espy front bar has a long and storied history of being a place that everyone goes, for better or for worse. It is a place where people from all walks of life come together to celebrate their love of good times, cold beer, and in this case, incredibly loud guitars. 

Local stalwarts The Priory Dolls began proceedings with an apology to Espy management for past indiscretions, and a thank you for allowing them to return to their stage. How they took this remains unknown, but the audience found their style of psychedelic freak-rock more than forgiving. Opening for a touring band can sometimes be a thankless task, but the band soon had curious punters drawn into their gossamer nightmare web of manic riffs and malevolent rhythms.  Issues with the vocal mics threatened to hamper the performance, but front man Jeremy Mair made himself heard with enough vigour and force to put a few scratches on the painting of himself that lies hidden in an attic somewhere. 

Guitar fiend Rory Lampitt and bass machine James Payne delivered a roaring typhoon of noise that blurred colours together, while Tyson Slithers threw himself at the keys and shrieked like an apocalyptic priest with weapons of synth instead of scripture. Drummer Erin 'T-Rex' Taylor held them all together with iron fists, delivering beats strong enough to command a Viking warship. They closed out the set with audience favourite 'Jack of the Morning Sun', an electric beast that collapsed into a throwdown- guitars were swung like bats, one keyboard failed to survive the conflict and a drumstick landed in a pot of draught halfway down the bar. While the band delivers a hell of a show, you're best advised to hold onto your beer.

Brisbane lads The Bleeding Knees Club took a more minimalist approach, with duties divided between the shaggy-haired two piece. A drummer who also sings is often a sign of danger but Alex Wall performed both capably. Guitarist Jordan Malane got the audience dancing with a heavy but poppy set reminiscent of the classic garage style. Also present was a keen sense of humour, with songs like 'Teenage Girls'  poking fun at the lyrics that only 60's bands can really get away with. 

While they played a solid and energetic show their two-man set up did not allow for much in the way of variety. The garage style is not typically well known for colouring outside the lines, but by the middle of the set one song began to bleed into another. When your sound is something quite a bit like a lot of things you've heard before this is an especially unfortunate position. The band were certainly well received, but without a fresh injection of ideas they could soon become stale, and this would be a shame. 

Long delays built tension as Wolf & Cub set up, the aforementioned keyboard planned to be part of the set was now out of action and had to be abandoned. Once the twin drum kits were set up and the guitars tuned the opening riff blew out the knees of everyone within 10 metres of the stage, and several international aircraft reported strange noises outside the plane. Loud is a totally insufficient word to describe being close to their stage, but whatever adjective you use it's a sound you can feel in your short and curlys. 

The vocals were again low and and difficult to make out in the mix, but nobody seemed to mind. Pockets of moshing (or pogo-ing if you're old) moved around the raucous crowd, with many shaking heads, stamping feet and raised beers that nearly vibrated their way out the cups. Bassist Wade Keighran alternated between enormous, swirling riffs and the impressive achievement of making a pair of maracas look manly. At one point the furious jams were so intense that the world's most aggressive ballroom dance broke out in the middle of the crowd, swirling around as the crowd cheered on. Twin drummers Joel Carey and Marvin Hammond ran like clockwork, their synchronicity was almost hypnotic, while lead Joel Byrne played with enough energy to start a fire. Wolf & Cub have had a lot of success around the world recently, and it's not hard to see why- they skip the bubblegum and go straight to kicking ass.