 |
|
On Thursday night, The Living End lit up The Palace in Melbourne on their The End Is Just The Beginning tour. The Melbourne rock trio brought in a crowd of variety, ranging from flannelette-clad bogans, to the Triple M dads, to the hardcore fanatics, in an evening that showed that the band aren’t quite ready to slow down just yet.
Hunting Grounds (formerly Howl) got things going, with their brand of self-proclaimed ‘pussy metal’. The Bendigo collective are quite an act live, loud, fast, and hair free flowing as the strike each energetic chord.
King Cannons came up with the goods next, in personally one the most surprising performances I’ve seen all year. I entered the venue knowing next to nothing about the band, and left a massive fan. The tattoo-covered locals cranked out tune after tune of hook-laden rock as they warmed up the crowd with an energetic performance, prepping them for the headlining act.
The Living End took to the stage and dove straight into new material, as the trio, and one bloke in the shadows, got the crowd into frenzy. But it wasn’t until their first older track, ‘Second Solution’, that the crowd really verged into a chaotic clanging of bodies. The jumped and swayed, some not even facing the stage as they hip, shouldered, and chanted to the anthems being played at them. fan-favourites such as ‘Roll On’, and ‘All Torn Down’ went down a treat, and there was even a relaxing little cover of ‘Run To Paradise’.
However, the highlight of the evening, as it has been since it’s release, and will be until the band retires, was ‘Prisoner Of Society’. The anthem of many a-trouble causing bogan or coming-of-age kid learning about ‘punk’, the crowd jumped and chanted, ”‘cause I’m a brat, and I know everything, and I talk back” in the face of anyone nearby, while a mist of beer could be seen hovering above the moshpit. Of course most would be of content finishing there, but no, not the living end. Cheney and co came back the encore to squeeze out ‘White Noise’, and ‘West End Riot’, to leave the sweaty crowd smitten, and sweaty.
