Live Review: Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, Pinch Points, Bad Bangs

It is almost impossible to stop your eyes shifting across the extravagant facade of the side entrance of the Moreland Hotel on Sydney Road. The columns and roof suggest an ancient Greek temple like the Parthenon and as you walk through the doors, very little could prepare you for the Italo-Greco fantasy that awaits inside. The stage is a classical rotunda with a huge fibreglass replica of Michelangelo's David at the very centre. Overhead the vaulted ceiling deploys a dreamy trompe l'œil effect of blue skies with fluffy white clouds. Everyone seems to be collectively scratching their heads at the somewhat surreal choice of venue.

While you would expect to hear a piano accordion player quietly serenading the crowd at this place, on the last night of the Brunswick Music Festival the gig of choice features three hard-rocking local outfits that promise to be a blast. We arrive for Bad Bangs who, fronted by Shelby De Fazio, are serving up a tough set of rocking garage. There is a kind of rough Angel Olsen vibe to their sound that makes for an excellent way to start the evening.

Bad Bangs.

Pinch Points, wearing matching branded tees, take to the stage with casual ease and launch into a wild frenzy of angular punk that seems to get louder with each song. It’s kind of hard to believe that they have so much material up their sleeves given that they only started gigging around the middle of last year. Their driving hard-rock noise is played with a take-no-prisoners attitude that gets in our faces but still feels good.

Pinch Points.

The room fills with an eclectic array of Northside locals for Cash Savage and her band The Last Drinks. While Pinch Points make a racket that expresses a certain sense of frustration and angst, Savage and her band are more lyrical in expressing similar feelings. The observations in the songs force us to really think about the world around us, illuminating the darkness of our times. Savage jokes that she tried to climb the fibreglass David but soon realised that he wasn’t ready for her. Her songs speak of bleak, option-less futures in the suburbs of Melbourne where the grim realities of joblessness and child care loom large. 

Dedicating Collapse to the now notorious Egg Boy, Savage leads us into an apocalyptic downward spiral which pulls away just in time for Cash to scream “Rich white men” to devastating effect. Savage's no-nonsense and powerful delivery adds weight to the lyrics. Beneath the gruff exterior lies a heart of gold – even when she broods the line “I'd hoped you were better than that,” the deep heartbreak behind the line feels completely authentic. The Last Drinks, complete with a violinist Kat Mear, bring to mind Crime And The City Solution. They deliver raw, relentless pub-rock that’s punk to its core, but by building melodies that swirl in the mix, they add to Savage’s darkness to haunting effect. "No encores," Savage shouts at us, and she remains true to her word.