Live Review: Bluejuice + Deep Sea Arcade – The Metro Theatre, Sydney (24.10.14)

They are one of Australia’s most loved and lauded live acts and sadly, they are calling it quits. Those crazy cats from Bluejuice have decided it’s time to hang up the ridiculous home-made costumes and move on to new projects and lives. In the span of 13 years of touring, if you hadn’t seen them play at least once, be it at one of their own insanely wild headline shows or on a huge summer festival bill, you truly did miss out on seeing something spectacular.

By the time I make it into the Metro the room is already swarming with people, it’s a sold out show and the dance floor was already teeming. Main support act Deep Sea Arcade are given a rousing cheer when they enter; like our headliners, these Sydney locals have done good. With their psychedelic indie rock they get the room warmed up and feeling groovy. Singer Nic McKenzie strolls around on the stage and serenades the room, whilst bassist Mody Grant hunches over his guitar churning out those subtle rhythmic throbs. “Don’t Be Sorry” has their drummer pounding out a formidable beat and “Black Cat” has a great guitar solo that jolts through the room. “Steam”, with its twangy guitars and Brit pop sound, gets some of the crowd riled up. They’re volume and energy is no match for what’s to come though.

But it is our headliners who we are all here to see and to bid a fond farewell to. With a darkened stage and all the equipment covered in strips of neon gaffa tape the Bluejuice guys wander out and immediately launch into “The Recession” and the crowd is jumping and writhing within moments. With barely a pause, they’re straight into “SOS” and the pace, noise, synth horns and beats are relentless. “I’ll Go Crazy”, with its nostalgic video being projected behind it, has a somewhat sentimental feel.

Their last single to be released as a band and part of their Restropectable greatest hits album release, in the three minutes of the video being shown on the screen whilst the band plays the song, we’re given flashbacks to some video and photo highlights of their career. “On My Own”, with its thumping kick drum line, snappy snare drum and rising and falling synth piano chord scales had us all singing along “Even though I know that it’s over, even though I know that it’s done”, while “Shock” got the crowd clapping along and shaking their booties from side to side. Strangely though it’s when they play “George Costanza” that the crowd seems to get the most enjoyment out of watching the video on the screen behind the band.

The slowest moments in the set during “Head Of The Hawk” and when the guys crack out a cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” give us all a chance to briefly catch a breath and get ready for the final homestretch. It is an onslaught, a barrage of furious and frenetic dynamism as “Cheap Trix”, “Act Yr Age” and “Vitriol” close out the main set with three of their most energetic tracks back to back. They wring every last ounce of spirit out of the crowd with those three songs, and yet when they walk off stage seconds later we’re all screaming and chanting for the encore.

They turned the room into a rave party, throwing out glowsticks to the crowd for “Medication” and pumping strobe lights to the max as the mosh goes wild and in amongst the flashes you can see arms waving and the bodies are rippling around on the floor. For one final time, they close the show with “Broken Leg” and every single voice in the room is roaring the words back to the band as we all jump up and down and dance along to the song. As the room lights up the band take one final bow, everybody is applauding and cheering and it’s been a phenomenal show and the crowd has clearly enjoyed every savoured second. Sydney night 1, you’ve done the band and the crowd proud for their homecoming farewell, I just hope Sydney night 2 is just as rip-roaring.

There is no doubting that Bluejuice will be greatly missed, a group of guys who never took themselves too seriously and this was evident in their music, their videos and live shows. But it was seeing them perform live that completely mesmerised me and won me over and I’ve been lucky to see them on several occasions over the course of their career. They had ridiculous onstage costumes (there was those yellow jumpsuits, or how about those mop suits, don’t forget the mankinis or those gold lame outfits too), and they incorporated their video projections to coordinate with their songs so it was both an aural and visual extravaganza whenever you went to their concert.

Then of course, there was always Jake’s insistence on climbing any possible scaffolding or speaker stacks within arm’s reach and praying that he wouldn’t sustain yet another bizarre injury. But more than all of that it was the fact that when you saw them live, they gave 110% and both band and audience would always finish the night covered in sweat and on an adrenaline high and if you’d walked out not enjoying yourself then clearly you hadn’t seen the same show.

Tonight you could see both Jake and Stav pouring every last ounce of what they had into every single song as they ran and jumped and bounced from one side of the stage to the other and it was beautiful and oh so bittersweet to think that this would be our last time seeing them. For those unfortunate souls who missed out on seeing them on this tour, you truly did miss something spectacularly special. And for those fortunate souls that are yet to see them as they wind up ‘The Retrospectable Tour’, you are in for a treat.

Goodbye, good luck and thanks for all the memories and those questionable onstage outfits boys.

———-

This content has recently been ported from its original home on The AU Review: Music and may have formatting errors – images may not be showing up, or duplicated, and galleries may not be working. We are slowly fixing these issue. If you spot any major malfunctions making it impossible to read the content, however, please let us know at editor AT theaureview.com.

Carina Nilma

Office lackey day-job. Journalist for The AU Review night-job. Emotionally invested fangirl.