Live Review: Mental As Anything, Jason Ayres

The Charles Hotel was packed early on at the start of the night with fans young and old keen for some fun, quirky pop from one of Australia's longest running new wave acts, and ARIA Hall Of Famers, Mental as Anything.

The night started out in a more subdued manner with singer-songwriter Jason Ayres playing his acoustic-based pop tunes from both his Chasing Ghosts EP and recently released full-length self-titled album. Delivering a strong set, he capped it off with a cover of Lady Antebellum's Need You Now which had the audience singing along and cheering by the end of it.

Mental as Anything strolled on with singer and keyboardist Andrew "Greedy" Smith sporting a pimp white flat cap. Sporting similar strange headwear was Martin Plaza, who delivered the first of many rocking guitar solos on opener Too Many Times while the rhythm section of Zoltan Budai on bass guitar and Jacob Cook on drums pounded out a solid beat. 

The band delivered great versions of Live It Up and If You Leave Me. Unfortunately the songs arrived a little too early.

Come Around saw some blistering wah guitar from Mike Caen before the band delivered great versions of Live It Up and If You Leave Me. Unfortunately the songs arrived a little too early in their set and this led to a few people skipping out having already heard the songs they came to see. Despite the small dropout, the band was still energetically cranking out the tunes and had plenty more to come.

One of the big highlights of night came with Mr Natural. With its driving Bowie-style beat reminiscent of Jean Genie and funky fuzz guitars, it was the track that got everyone dancing down at the front of the stage. The crowd dissipated somewhat during the ballad The World Seems Difficult but the Mentals won them back with their hit The Nips Are Getting Bigger and soon the audience was fist pumping along as Plaza rocked out the guitar riff in the chorus.

The encore found the Mentals playing two final numbers, The Safaris' The Rise And Fall Of Flingel Bunt and Chuck Berry's Rock And Roll Music, getting the crowd singing and dancing along to the surf rock standards. “Good afternoon, good evening and goodnight,” said Smith, borrowing a line from The Truman Show as a final farewell to the audience, at least for now.