Live Review: Catfish & The Bottlemen, Fountaineer

The support for tonight is kept very hush and there's no sign of who we can expect on any event pages. Turns out it's the boys from Bendigo: Fountaineer. The band grasp the audience's attention with their heavy beats and danceable tracks, doing a great job of warming everyone up. You can tell these guys are full of gratitude for the incredible opportunity they've been given thanks to this support slot ("Thanks for listening to our little songs about Bendigo") and their modern synth-laden melodies alongside frontman Anthony White's '80s rock-esque vocals display charm and confidence.

Twice in one year. How could we be so lucky? Since their January show, Catfish & The Bottlemen have had a major upgrade in the capacity of venue in which they play and tonight they prove why the general admission section sold out in a matter of minutes.

Suddenly the crowd is packed in like sardines, all squished together. After blasting Dean Martin's Ain't That A Kick In The Head over the PA much to the confusion of this mixed-aged crowd, British rockers Catfish & The Bottlemen arrive on stage, smashing into Homesick to deafening screams and cheers. These seasoned performers play a mixed set that takes in their 2014 release The Balcony and 2016's The Ride, as well as some sneaky EP tracks, which is much appreciated by fans old and new. Every song goes off, harder than the one before, as the crowd screams for more. "It took us two headline tours," frontman Van McCann observes of how fast their fanbase has grown over a short period of time.

The lighting is on steroids, washes of green and red with strobes perfectly timed to the fast-paced beats. In the audience, arms are flailing everywhere and punters are up on their friends' shoulders, taking their shirts off - it's an incredibly wild and infectious atmosphere; Catfish & The Bottlemen belong on stage. McCann covers every square centimetre of Festival Hall's stage as he runs back and forth, playing guitar over his head, falling onto the floor and going absolutely wild as his band feed off their frontman's contagious energy.

Ending on Tyrants, an oldie from 2010's The Beautiful Decay EP, Catfish & The Bottlemen give their absolute all to Melbourne fans and leave us with a promising statement: "We'll come back as soon as we have our next album." We'll hold them to that.