Upon entering Brisbane's Eatons Hill Hotel, I cop a wall of heat, beer fog, and excited boomer chatter; this one's going full nostalgia tilt before a single note even rings out.
The floor's sticky, the bar staff are already sweating, and every second bloke is wearing a Skid Row shirt that's clearly older than half the crowd. Perfect.
Willie J's 6v6s pile onstage early (29 November), the three Melbourne lads – Willie J, Sebastian Robertson and Callum Leavey – hit the stage like they've been shot out of a V8 engine block.
As they crash into 'Squeeze', Willie is gripping the mic with that wild-eyed conviction like someone's dared him to blow the roof off. 'Sinner', 'Safe Delivery', and 'That's All She Wrote' all land tight and gritty.
Willie thrashes the heck out of his Flying V with fingers darting up and down the fretboard like he's swatting an army of fire ants. By the time they rip through 'Mad Woman', the drums are cracking like someone's dropping crates in the pokies room.
Willie J's 6v6s - image © Clea-marie Thorne
We get one that really shifts the gears, 'Take The Wheel'. It drips with pure Bon Scott snarl, giving off Acca Dacca vibes so strong you can practically smell cigarette ash and old leather jackets. Willie's vocals cut through the room sharp as hell, and the crowd's actually paying attention, which never happens at Eatons Hill this early (jokes).
They wrap it up with a playful cover 'A Little Help From My Friends', just to make sure we know Willie not only has the guitar chops to go places but can croon like a wolf beneath the moon. They leave the stage steaming, the room absolutely pumped.
Then the lights drop and Sebastian Bach storms out like 57 means nothing except a bigger target to out-run. The man's a live wire. Proper energetic, pacing, swinging the mic like a helicopter blade, grinning like he's stoked to still be wrecking stages.
Sebastian Bach - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Brodie 'Bruiser' DeRozie fires riffs like a human angle grinder, Fede Delfino thumping the bass like it insulted his mum, and Paris Bach smashing the drums with full feral family pride. The whole band's running red-hot the moment they ignite onstage.
'What Do I Got To Lose?' kicks the night off like a dare, and then it's Skid Row open season: 'Slave To The Grind' detonating the room, punters throwing their fists up like they've magically aged backwards 30 years. 'Here I Am', 'Makin' A Mess’, and 'Big Guns' shake the solid floor, punters yelling every word, Bach leaning straight into it.
Sebastian Bach - image © Clea-marie Thorne
By '18 And Life', the room is belting the chorus so loud it's drowning the man himself, and he's loving it, egging everyone on, pacing the stage like a dog off the leash.
'Sweet Little Sister', 'Rattlesnake Shake', and 'Shock Me' (KISS cover) are all slammed out with only a little downtime for some hype by Bach, who is sweating and grinning. Dude is proving he can still push his voice into that unmistakable razor-edge scream.
'Can't Stand The Heartache' hits harder than expected, 'Freedom' and 'Future Of Youth' punching through with that old-school rock bravado, and 'Piece Of Me' making the whole room feel like a reunion of every failed cover band from the '90s as Fede goes topless – I'm guessing from the heat, but I think he just turned it up!
Sebastian Bach - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Then it's 'Monkey Business' with 'I Don't Know' and a little snippet of 'Heaven And Hell', in Ozzy and Dio style. The whole thing is messy in the best, chaotic way. Talking monkey business, Paris is not only drumming behind a Perspex screen, earlier we found out he's been drumming up dates. LOL! A fan made a sign that says 'Paris why did you invite 2000 on our date?'. Love it!
'I Remember You' has the entire joint doing the phone-torch (and even a few Bic lighters) sway, some punters rough-singing it like it's their wedding song, others yelling the high notes like their throats aren't going to hate them for it tomorrow.
Bach calls out the names of the music legends no longer with us, like Ozzy, Chris Cornell, Neil Peart and many others, to be remembered but it's also a stinging of our own mortality.
We don't dwell for long as 'Midnight/Tornado' spirals into 'Youth Gone Wild', the whole room losing their final shreds of sanity. The madness is embraced fully by this lot.
Encore time; he rips into one of his Aussie faves from back in the day, 'We Can't Be Beaten' (Rose Tattoo), as every beer- or rum-guzzling bogan in the building suddenly turns into a patriotic choir. While 'Get The F... Out' is the perfect send-off. It's rude, loud, and exactly what everyone wanted.
Sebastian Bach - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Spilling out into the cooler night air soaked in sweat that's absolutely not all mine, I clock that no one showed up for restraint. They came for noise, chaos, and that big nostalgic thump Bach's been handing out freely at full throttle. For 57, he's moving like he's borrowed a fresh set of joints from someone half his age.
Tonight's crowd deserves its own shout, meeting him blow-for-blow, screaming their teenage years back into existence. . . or screaming because they wish they'd been teenagers in the glory years of this madness.
