Live Review: Royal Blood, Polish Club

As part of their nationwide tour piggybacking on their appearances at Groovin The Moo, British duo Royal Blood gathered thousands of young and old rockers alike for an evening of hard-hitting riffs and unapologetic drum fills at the Brisbane's beloved Riverstage.

Before the lads from Brighton took to the stage, Sydney's own rock duo Polish Club were charged with warming up the mosh and getting those stuck on the hill off their butts and onto their feet. Without fanfare, the pair opened their set with the smashing Gimme Money from their latest EP Okie Dokie, with the tassels on singer-guitarist David Novak's jacket thrashing just as much as drummer John-Henry Pajak's shoulder-length hair.

Watchuknow and Beat Up, cuts from their debut album Alright Already, saw plenty of tail feathers in the amphitheatre shaking early on, even though the band themselves sounded a little rusty. The pair, between fits of giggles and engaging banter, went on to deliver a punkish blues cover of local heroes Powderfinger's (Baby I've Got You) On My Mind on the same stage the quintet bid a fond farewell almost a decade earlier.

Beeping finally had the duo reaching top gear, with Pajak's thrashing technique the perfect backdrop to Novak's soulful-yet-gravelly voice and overdriven guitar. While it wasn't their most polished performance, they definitely lived up to their label of, "The loudest goddamn soul outfit you've ever heard."

As rain began to fall and KC & The Sunshine Band's Get Down Tonight blared over the speakers, the crowd roared as a sashaying Mike Kerr and stony-faced Ben Thatcher took their places in front of their respective colossal stage set-ups. After a second to take in the crowd, Royal Blood launched into Where Are You Now? - the first of a seemingly endless barrage of bone-crushing riffs and smashing cymbals throughout the evening.

The dives and myriad of effects employed by Kerr in Lights Out only further excited the now feverish mosh, who quickly formed two giant circle pits when Kerr lit up his fretboard for the opening riff of Come On Over. It was only three songs in, but Brisbane's picturesque botanical gardens felt akin to Splendour In The Grass' sweat-drenched amphitheatre where the pair blew Australia's socks off in 2015.

Delving further into their self-titled debut album, You Can Be So Cruel finally let Thatcher shake off his sidekick shackles while Kerr continued to rock out harder than the rain was falling. A quick pause for everyone to catch their breath allowed two Catwoman-esque go-go-dancing vocalists to take their positions centre stage, providing a provocative addition to the chorus of I Only Lie When I Love You. However, no matter which way the pair of Catwomen shimmied, all eyes eventually returned to Kerr and Thatcher thanks to a monstrous combination of distortion and smacking cowbell.

Red mist descended across the stage as Kerr created an unnerving droning introduction to Little Monster, which the mosh met with a somewhat-playful wall of death. With his lightning-fast fingers shredding up the neck between lyrics and his five-amp bass stack projecting a stupidly chunky rock tone, Kerr showed that a bassist can also make jaws drop and wannabe rockstars whip out their air guitars.

Throwing horns to the heaving mosh, Kerr thew his body hard into Hook, Line & Sinker - one of the many vicious tracks from their second album How Did We Get So Dark?. In the live setting, the track was powerful as it was surprisingly melodic… before Kerr unleashed and pushed his bass, and layers of distortion, to the limit as it squealed and shrieked through the song's chaotic sections.

A matte-black keyboard was then wheeled on stage for Kerr, who showcased his diverse musicality in the bipolar thumper Hole In Your Heart. The shifting distortion in this track was even more extreme live, along with the systematic brutalisation of Thatcher's many cymbals.

After another short pause for breath, lighting synchronised with Thatcher's snare drum theatrically led into their second album's namesake single and a crescendo, built upon the dancer's soft vocals, became a deafening wall of blown-out bass and percussion loud enough to rattle ribcages.

Calls for Kerr to do a shoey were clapped back with, "Oh, we've done our dues, so why don't you shoey the fuck up, aye!" However, he made it up to the adoring mosh with an explosive singalong for Figure It Out that saw the bassist engage in an animalistic ritual of hits and posturing to create as much feedback as possible.

The encore featured debut album bangers Ten Tonne Skeleton and Out Of The Black, which culminated in Kerr standing with Thatcher at his drum podium to form a frenzied four-armed rock deity that provided the perfect soundtrack to the set's final wall of death and some serious headbanging. We have left drenched in sweat and rain and nursing plenty of bruises, but there's no doubt that thousands just witnessed the beginning of the next true reign of rock royalty.