Chimers aren't even supposed to be here today.
The husband-and-wife garage-rock duo had planned to spend their Friday evening (11 August) celebrating their 16th wedding anniversary – that was, until a call came through from one Kim Salmon at the 11th hour seeking a replacement for an ill Penny Ikinger.As guitarist Pádraic Skehan jokes to the crowd: "Marry someone who'll say yes to playing with the Beasts of Bourbon!"
It's yet another feather in the cap of the two-piece, who have been supporting luminaries like Mudhoney, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes and Salmon's other band The Scientists. More to the point, Chimers' performances like the one they put on tonight truly put the 'special' in 'with special Guests'.
Constantly on the attack, the mix of dissonant and distorted guitar chug against a driving drum wallop is best described as an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object.
The raw power of tracks like 'Beasts', 'Surrounds' and 'Turn Out The Lights' are only truly comprehended when they're being blasted directly in your face. You're left not wondering how they got the gig, but more why they didn't have it in the first place. Joyeux anniversaire, Chimers.
The only thing Skehan got wrong in his onstage banter is who his band were playing with. This is not the Beasts Of Bourbon – out of respect to the late great Spencer P. Jones, that is a retired band name.
Much like the surviving members of the Grateful Dead continuing on post-Jerry Garcia as The Dead or Dead & Company, you can call the five men that take to the Factory Theatre stage tonight The Beasts. Or, in the words of frontman Tex Perkins: "We used to be the Beasts Of Bourbon."
Four-fifths of the original line-up are present, with latter-day guitarist Charlie Owen completing the fold, as the band celebrates 40 years since the original Beasts formed out of Sydney.
The beasts in question may be a little slower and longer in the tooth these days – drummer James Baker has to be assisted onto the riser to get to his kit – but once the wheels are in motion, you're still able to get those glimpses of the real rock & roll danger that came in their heady pub-rock heyday.
'Hard For You' still snarls and moans in all the right places, with Salmon howling the titular "hard" with gusto, and the dusty country-rock of 'Dead Flowers' maintains its original swagger.
There's a couple of shared glances across the set, with everyone checking in to see if they know where they are – which, when one is already lost, is a bit like the blind leading the blind. Still, it's all taken in stride.
"We are not rehearsed," quips Perkins at one point, to which a punter responds: "Just like in 1983!" Indeed, because Perkins and co. are partying like it's 1983, they treat the set as such
Signature song 'Chase The Dragon' is nowhere to be seen, and neither is basically anything beyond their 1984 debut 'The Axeman's Jazz'.
Though it's a shame to not hear 'the hits', as it were, it's definitely fun to see the band take a swing at a slab of covers that they used to perform in the early days in order to compensate for a lack of original material at the time of their pub gigs.
The Sonics' 'Strychnine' feels like a song Perkins was born to perform, while Alice Cooper's 'I'm Eighteen' is still as a fun sing-along as ever – even when the youngest person in the room is likely twice that very age.
For the encore, the band turn to two songs that were promptly thrashed in the early years of the band and ultimately retired by the early '90s: Their standard-bearing cover of the Leon Payne murder ballad 'Psycho' and 'The Axeman's Jazz' closer 'Ten Wheels For Jesus'.
Perkins leans into the theatrics of both songs, slinking the stage during the former and converting into a mad preacher during the latter, while the band picks up the pace and brings the whole thing to a triumphant close.
You've no doubt Jones' spirit is up the back by the bar, raising a glass to everything that he and his mates achieved some 40 years ago. These beasts cannot be slain by conventional weapons.
