Live Review: Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds, Gentle Ben & His Shimmering Hands, The Stress Of Leisure

Walking into The Foundry for Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds is like stepping into a completely different time period to a time of denim jackets, slicked-back hair and cowboy boots; that's because there's a classic garage rock act playing tonight. The Foundry is well-known for drawing in a young, hip Doc Martens-wearing crowd on most nights, but tonight there is a distinct increase in the average age and a very noticeable lack of craft-beer sipping.

Opening are the eccentric The Stress Of Leisure, a self-described "pineapple-infused rock band". Regardless of whether you can taste the fruit in their sound, The Stress Of Leisure have been around the Brisbane circuit for a while and continue build on their strengths as a live act. Powering through numbers from their recent album Eruption Bounce, The Stress Of Leisure try their best to get the punters in the room dancing.

Gentle Ben & His Shimmering Hands draw in a considerable crowd. However, as they take the stage there is a clear space between the mass of crowd and the stage. This seems unnecessary, but once Gentle Ben and co kick into their first number it all starts to make sense. On the mic, Gentle Ben is a man possessed, his onstage presence a flurry of windmills, mic throws and a few splits thrown in for good measure. With a bit of a Chris Isaak to his appearance and the voice of a man who has lived many lives, we can't get enough. The crowd never quite get down to the front, but they certainly get the message.

Folks cram together to try and get as close to the stage as possible for the experience that is Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds. Sneaking onto the stage in his extravagant bedazzled cape and greaser business-casual get-up, Kid Congo hypnotises us with a tale of galactic transmissions and an oscillator pad. It's like we're being transported to The Twilight Zone, but then the roar of Spider Baby brings us back to reality. Throughout the set, the ferociousness of the band builds until we hear the unstoppable riffage of Psychic Future and Magic Machine. The tightness of the band is undeniable, especially prevalent during the sway of La Arana. Sweat beads raining off of the rhythm guitarist at this point, the 90-minute set sees Kid Congo dip into his other band's material. Kid Congo Powers is a luminary of the garage-rock scene, having been a part of legendary bands The Gun Club and The Cramps before making waves with Nick Cave. Lucky for us, we get to hear some of the best tracks from these bands thrown in with New Kind of Kick and Can't Find My Mind giving a mid-set pop to the crowd's insanity. 

As the set comes to a close with Bubble Trouble, it's obvious the crowd aren't going to have it. Chants for an encore bring the now-sopping wet band back on stage to belt out "freak anthem" Let's Go! and The Gun Club classic Sex Beat before ending their encore with a ten-minute jam of post-rock mixed with garage rock. It's hard to describe, but it's just pure experimentation and it's beautiful. Mixing elements of spaghetti western, surf rock and garage rock with the moody aura of a song from the Twin Peaks soundtrack.