Live Review: Melvins, Redd Kross

There was, and may never be, a band exactly like glam-punk survivors Redd Kross.

The four foxy goofballs based around the brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald launched into good time jukebox gems like Jimmy's Fantasy, winning over an initially neutral crowd. On drums was the "newest member of the Redd Kross family," Melvins' revered powerhouse Dale Crover, who applied his wares with typical intensity, sweat exploding off his dome as if he'd just been roundhoused by a mule. Despite the length of their teeth, every member played with a zesty exuberance you'd expect from young up-and-comers, ever ready to pull off waist-high kicks or argue about who's doing vocals next. But with an extreme heavyweight act to follow, they wisely upped the intensity to close with some heavy swamp psychedelia, causing an outbreak of lumber-moshing in the increasingly populated front rows. It was clear they'd won over a batch of new followers.

Reliably amazing no matter where they're at, Melvins ditched the moody vibe of their taciturn and obliteratingly loud Fremantle show in 2013. Instead, they indulged in playing whatever the heck they liked, opening with the hellbound occult-doom of Sacrifice and most bizarrely slamming out The Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand, which was just about recognisable under the grunting and sheer raw power. Pared down to a classic three-piece, with Redd Kross' Steven McDonald earning overtime credits on bass, frontman Buzz Osborne in particular was appreciably more mobile, cavorting about the stage as if he owned it. But when you have a bass player who might execute scissor kicks at any given moment, you obviously have to raise your game some.

Although most of the better-known songs were omitted, they couldn't leave The Bit out and the crowd responded with some proper horrorshow rowdiness and good old fashioned fight dancing down the front, where the blind intensity of some of the collisions raised expectations that blood would flow at any moment. As the end approached, McDonald howled his way through Hung Bunny as if his sanity depended on it. No one could begrudge that there was no encore given the severe physical demands of playing back to back sets, particularly for Crover, and with the lunatic after effects of Roman Bird Dog still reverberating minutes later, a bizarrely church-like rapture permeated the room like some inebriating toxin.