i know it’s a bit long but there’s a lot of comment which has to be said here. the crowd were absolutely cuddly.
With the recently thriving Fremantle community of musicians throttled by the closure of almost every venue in town, I have oft wondered what this huge and extremely loyal base of bands and fans do now. Do they hang out in the pinball arcades? Do they go fishing a lot more? Or maybe they just spend an extra ten hours a week at the cafe?
Not since Tiananmen Square has such fervour been so brutally snubbed out in an instant. So putting a whole swag of Fremantle muses and maniacs under the one roof was bound to raise it.
Although stricken with a slow-acting vindaloo belly, delaying my arrival, one could not escape the nods of semi-recognition from days of yore, group critiques of ill-fitting clothing and the uninhibited dancing that Freo was once defined by. The beauty of Fremantle gigs always lay in the beauty of its audience.
The set by Triggerfish was an example of the type of band which used to frequent Sunday sessions in the port city – their bluesy approach being somewhat twisted (and thus the term ‘Freo band’) with the forever familiar and long missed funk bass work of Andrei, ex-The Glummens.
With Ben from The Nads swapping his drum stool for centre stage on guitar and vocals, the 400-odd punters weren’t exactly enraptured by the simple blues licks of Triggerfish, but simply bathed in the live sound after a diet of multiplay CD acid jazz compilations.
Between sets brought on another highlight: The Nads’ Sam Longley, respendant in a silver snakeskin bodysuit, and Mic Britten joined Ben in a rather uncomplimentary ode to boutique bars. Molitov cocktails flickered about the room like lighters at a Gunners concert.
In the old days, Squidfinger could pack the Harbourside with one promotional handbill in the window of a shoe repair shop. This night with another packed house, Up, Up, Up and Pritikin Stud were even dirtier and sleazier than ever before with drummer Nick Carpenter running from behind his kit for a maracca-shaking love dance at the very pinnacle of Squidfinger fever and Michael Dean’s guitar and croon being totally raw and raspy.
Forget Air Jordan, Freo embraces an entity called Air Rex. Playing two bass guitars at once and disregarding the mics except for some well placed yelps, Air Rex and the Ensemble powered through a long set of crazed jazz to a floor full of incessantly bouncing uninitiates.
But I think something is lost when the Ensemble take to a large stage, they truly hit their straps when they have no elbow room and Steve Elkins has to climb on his keyboard for space. Mind you, seeing stage divers while jazz rhythmically wafts past was a real treat.
It all made sense that this was a benefit for the Fremantle Original Music Association, because someone needs to re-associate Fremantle as an original music haven that it once was.
Adam Connors
