Live Review: Against Me!, Joyce Manor, Ceres

Melbourne band Ceres play a style that recalls '90s emo. Standing in direct contrast to Joyce Manor, their songs slowly meander and are punctuated by awkward banter. On any other day it would be sufficient, but when placed alongside two of the world’s best, the divide is magnified.

Last on the very stage just a year and a half ago, the demand for Joyce Manor has considerably, and deservedly increased since. Their sound draws comparisons to a middle ground of Weezer meets Descendents, along with the Californian influence of Crimpshrine and Operation Ivy. They race through a set that contains what seems like 20 songs though it’s hard to keep up. Drawing deep into their discography, including Five Beer Plan, Chumped and Leather Jacket from their 2010 EP, to Falling In Love Again and Heart Tattoo from last year’s Never Hungover Again, it’s fast-paced and intoxicating, and doesn’t relent from the first to last chord.

In 2007, on the title track to the band’s fourth album, New Wave, Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace prophetically sang, “We can be the bands we want to hear/We can define our own generation”. Some eight years later, those words are in action. A middle finger salute and subversion of stereotypes, the Florida band have always done things their own way and in turn won the respect of their fans, tonight creating an energy in the room that is intensively raw and powerful. Their songs Black Me Out, True Trans Soul Rebel and Gender Dysphoria Blues are spine tingling, so to is an inspired cover of Roland S Howard’s Shivers. Against Me! aren’t simply riding the crest of a new wave, like their conquerors The Clash and The Replacements before them, they’re leading the charge.