It's Saturday evening (6 November) and Brisbane's Fortitude Valley entertainment precinct is alive and well.
With a purposeful tromp in my step, I scoot past the late afternoon revellers taking their good times into the night with a rising din of tipsy camaraderie.I am heading to destination O'skulligans where Spillage – Sam de Pasquale (vocals, guitar), David Gaukrodger (guitar), Nathan Kime (drums), Tony de Pasquale (bass) – will launch their recently released album 'Unawares'.
It's been decades between sets for these men who declare they are ready to blow out their gigging cobwebs.
At the entry I see a prominent hand-scribbled sign screaming 'Sold Out' to any approaching procrastinators. Ha! As I tell my mates: "The procrastination of an early ticket purchase is the thief of many a great gig experience." Comprende?
Those who readily exchanged their chump change for a ticket get a bonus round tonight – ding, ding! There are now three, not two bands playing, cunctators – taking it from awesome to a killer line-up that you dipped out on!
With three bands playing there is a stack of gear front of stage – I hope nobody tries to launch from that or start dancing on it.
First to grab their kit from the pile and kick off the night is four-piece Profanity Fair who are launching their latest single ahead of their debut album 'The Bombastic Bop'.
Profanity Fair - image © Clea-marie Thorne
The lads – Tye Nathan (vocals, guitar), Mitchell Levi (lead guitar), Michael Culling (bass) Taylor Hampson (drums) – immediately dial us into their '80s-'90s mixed rock sounds with their opener 'Look At Me'.
The crowd is quickly infected by their energy and Nathan introduces their next song and new single, 'One Hit Wonder' – here we see them give-up a little more anti-pop punk yet it's super fun and an extremely clever performance.
I find them very engaging on first listen and worthy of further attention. With more songs the crowd is invited to explore their poetic intentions and identify the likely influences behind their instrument arrangement and writing choices.
A couple of times my untrained ears thought they sounded a bit loose, but now I am getting an idea of their mind-bending rebelliousness; it is hard to determine if it is deliberate as they seem to play utterly tight at other times. It doesn't really matter. The onstage larks and electric energy coming from their music lift the mood in the dim-lit room from good to great.
Profanity Fair - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Nathan and Levi literally bounce off each other physically and creatively, and it is this passionate energy that overrides anything a technical critic might focus on. Not a soul in the room can deny this band has a lust to play it live and loud. They've got the rockstar moves and tongue-in-cheek antics and raucous instrumentation down pat.
These guys will pull a crowd wherever they roam, and while they have a bucketload of talent between them, it'll only overflow if they keep doing what they clearly love.
On hearing a couple of Gunners-style riffs, I gather it is no accident a GnR logo attire is seen onstage. Levi's staunch over-exaggerated Slash-style, low to the ground rock & roll guitar stance fascinates me – just how low can one go? He executes and holds this position while playing with such immense skill that the unfit me is wincing imagining the quadricep burn to hold that pose.
Profanity Fair - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Profanity Fair played a catchy setlist full of melodic hooks that showcase some awesome work from the rhythm and rolls of Hampson on tubs and Culling on bass. 'Burnt Up Daisy', 'The Living Dead', 'My Fire', 'Effect', and 'Young' made up the rest of their eight-song setlist with 'Strawberry Jellyfish' an absolute corker closing out their set hard and fast.
With all the enthusiasm and boisterousness of teenage larrikins intent on making music, they are artfully cranking a raw signature style with damn good instrumentation and cool vox from a cheeky Nathan. I am smiling and that's a good thing.
A loud applause is dished out in appreciation by the growing crowd that is truly warmed for the next band.
The second act setting up on the crowded stage is ChoKo, a four-piece local supergroup you may not have heard about, as they are as yet, unsocialised in the media.
The band members are extremely talented musicians, and well-known to most in the crowd tonight. The common link to this exciting collaboration is Michelle Bowden (guitar) of Koko Uzi and Chopper Division. The rest of ChoKo is Andrew Davidson (vocals, guitar) and Cedric Ingra (bass) both of Chopper Division and Alana Manix of Koko Uzi (drums).
ChoKo - image © Clea-marie Thorne
We are told that all of the songs by ChoKo are new and will be unfamiliar all bar one, a Chopper Division cover – how exciting, I don't know if this will mean an EP in the future, but I hope so even without hearing them. I guess tonight they are launching the band to us.
ChoKo have punters snapping heads to the stage area from the first note of 'Brunswick 'n' Anne' – can you get any more local content than that for a kick-off song played in the Valley?
'Not Natural' was rocked out to us next and Davidson speaks and sings to punters about COVID and everything that has come along with it.
Next up they played 'Talk About It' and a banger of a song 'Demolition' – I didn't quite get to make out the lyrics on this one; I suspect that someone sneakily raised the volume and turned up the fuzz along the way. Who needs words when you can enjoy the heavy and dense sounds and vibrations coming at you.
ChoKo - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Other songs in the set included '9 Zones' (think public transport), while 'Prayer' had heads nodding and was an easy listen. I liked the guitar and bass swap towards the end of the set with their final banger introduced as 'My Friend'.
Manix smashed and beat out a fantastic set and with Ingra's thick and heavy bass grooving along made for a pretty neat rhythm section. Bowden was so chill and unflappable on the strings with no impact on her ability to bend the guitar to her will and make it look so simple.
I swear Manix didn't stop smiling for most of their set – she was in her element up the back hitting out snappy and tight beats on the kit when she was not smashing out thick rolls and hits. Davidson has great vocals for storytelling while also deftly playing guitar.
ChoKo - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Not that I need an excuse to get along to the next ChoKo show, but I might need to go to listen to the lyrics of the last few songs. Right? With ChoKo's set it transported me back to when live gigs were abundant in the dark, dank venues of Brisbane's live music scene like the Orient and Crash n Burn, where sound quality was often the second choice behind being part of a buzzing atmosphere of raw, live music with like-minded punters.
Simultaneously I am present and embrace the thick and heavy tunes playing to a full house pulsing with energy in a newer dive bar right here, right now.
Punters are well and truly primed for the main act about to bring more heavy and dense beats to bounce off the walls.
After a quick pack down, Spillage set up and are up to present their official launch of 'Unawares' – ten fresh tracks – to a room full of pumped bodies who are ready to rock and sway.
They open with track one from their new album 'Mamma, Mamma'. It has a comforting groove that matches the lyrical prose Sam sings to us and a trill solo that lands in a deep dive towards its end.
Spillage - image © Clea-marie Thorne
This is followed by 'Big Guy' and Sam is telling us this one is about a next-door neighbour and at first listen, I am thinking this bloke is a tall, ageing, narcissistic, lonely alcoholic. 'Feeling Good Today' picks up the pace and the lyrics skip along with the light beats of this number. It's fresh.
Before the next song, Sam takes a moment to heckle Chris Converse, well known for contributing to Punkfest successes, about sporting the Hawthorne socks he has pulled up to his punk rock kneecaps tonight. This gets the crowd and Converse chuckling.
The rhythm section leads our rocking bodies into 'You Said No'. As Sam starts the vocals with spoken word phrasing, for a split second I wonder if we are getting an Aussie JJ Cale or Harry Nilsson cover. But as quickly as the thought came it was swiftly wiped with the entry of thick and dense guitar and drums that went on to rock & roll in waves throughout the song.
Spillage - image © Clea-marie Thorne
In between the new album tracks, we get bonus extras thrown in: 'I Think We're Good', 'Have A Nice Day' and 'Foreign Town' that brings the setlist to 13 – thank you very much. The long-time fans in the crowd are loving it as is the rest of the room.
I am impressed with the next track 'Growing In My Heart'. I hear a taint of Pink Floyd mood and melody that works so well with the lyrics and when Gaukrodger makes his Les Paul guitar sing non-verbals, I feel a wave of light goosebumps.
Another stand-out moment comes at us next, maybe because I got Rocky Horror visuals within the first 15 seconds of its stop-start intro – it has nothing to do with the movie but everything to do with its soundtrack and how my brain associates music and dance moves. C'mon, I can't be the only one.
'Lonely Boy' continues past my flashback head, on into bluesy hooks and hip twisting grooves as it speaks to punters about the voids noticed when a significant other is no longer around and the lonely feels it brings. The story is accentuated by skilled fretwork and memorable refrain of the solo work.
Spillage - image © Clea-marie Thorne
The lads from Profanity Fair are having a ball dancing to Spillage. They are having such a blast – as is everyone in the room. It may be cliché but it is nonetheless true, at the end of their set all in the room are left wanting more of the reunited rockin' grunge goodness with a punk attitude that Spillage let seep into our minds tonight.
'Washing Over Me' comes in with a steady shifting rhythm, while the title track 'Unawares' ends the set with its roller coaster punk-garage rock vibe which moves the crowd.
Spillage can claim a successful 'Unawares' album launch, delivered live and extremely loud by seasoned musicians that energetically pelt out, smash out and shred up a top-notch set of bluesy-grunge tunes and razing rock & roll.
