Live Review: Stonecutters Day One

The queen would be mortified if she knew there was a grungy warehouse in the backstreets of the Adelaide CBD that bore her name, even more so if she were clued into the type of loose parties and hard music that played out there. Stonecutters 2016 was the archetype of the queen's nightmare of sedition.

Local lads Larsen opened the night and filled the corrugated hall for the early comers, but probably suffered from the early start time of their gig.

The highlight of the night came early on with Alex Lahey, whose star has been on an unremitting rise this year. Playing her EP B-Grade University in its entirety, she enchanted a crowd who hung from her every chord. Lahey and her band suffered a little from guitars drowning out the vocals and some terrible reverb, which was partly the fault of the cramped stage set-up and only amplified by the warehouse's tin roof. Sound problems were easy to ignore though as Lahey offered frank storytelling reminiscent of Courtney Barnett, only with more attractive vocals and an ineluctable pop bent. Safe to say, pretty soon it will be difficult to catch Lahey at such an intimate gig.

Female vocalists continued dominating the first half of the night, which was brilliant to see at the only gig of the year where the lines for the boys' toilet was longer than that for the girls'. Fresh from Splendour In The Grass, darkly glamorous Karina Utomo from High Tension showed the crowd how it was done, transitioning flawlessly from screaming to singing as they performed song after song from their second album Bully.

Hightime didn't waste a single second in what was one of their final sets before an extended hiatus. Frontwoman Nina McCann jumped in to crowd-surf within the first few songs of their reggae-infused punk set. The crowd sang along and shoes went flying within the first few minutes and this elated mood lasted the whole of Hightime's disparate and vibrant set. Some of the harmonies missed the mark by a few notes, but there was a pervasive feeling that harmonising was not the main intent of these party enthusiasts.

Headliners The Bennies rounded out the night, reviving the crowd that had emptied out somewhat during The Hard Aches' set. From the get-go, the pit was firing with non-stop crowdsurfing and the usual washing machine action you expect for a punk band, although scaled down for a 300-person festival. Playing Party Machine, the boys showed that they meant business and proved to the masses that they were what the song's title describes, further solidifying their name as punk heavyweights.

As a whole, Stonecutters offered a big night of excellent local talent and a great place to have a thrash around and lose a shoe or two.