Saturday 8th January, 2011 : Review by Alex Griffin

I used to have this music teacher who was convinced that the most essential part of playing an instrument was the tapping of the foot. After an abortive attempt at “Cat’s in the Cradle”, he’d pivot slightly on his stool, crane his neck and say, “if you’re not FEELING it, how are you going to PLAY it?”, and he’d start to talk about session musicians and Motown and I’d sorta zone out and think about girls or whatever, but…

Saturday night at Amplifier he was vindicated by the right boot of Petey Damnit; for every beat, and every note that Petey played on his bass during Thee Oh Sees set, his black leather boot would come down like the might of Thor, hammering on, nay, through, the stage. And, not to draw too long a bow, as a consequence Thee Oh Sees did PLAY (vs. play) rock music, and it was good, and it was better than good.

Beforehand a warm Amplifier was warmed up further. Firstly, Astral Travel played their punk-inflected, grinding indie skronk. Sounding like an intimidating version of the (Vivian Grrrls HAHAHAH), but more No Wave than No Age in the way they delivered their tunes, Astral Travel carried a detached air that skilfully avoided skirting apathy. The main draw, as always, was Amber Gempton’s commanding presence on the mic, which imbued the songs with an airy urgency.

The Sabretooth Tigers followed, comprised of three of the Tigers armed with a pile of art-punk tongue-in-cheek numbers that were only slightly less entertaining than their attitudes towards hecklers, which is a dimension of their live act which isn’t to be missed.

Moving to present tense and back to Thee Oh Sees:

Thee Oh Sees are pretty much what garage rock should be in the 21^st century; hyper prolific, cocksure, unintelligible, and fucking loud. Frontman John Dwyer has been kicking around bands for long enough to know exactly what makes up a galvanising, spleen-kicking, scruffy fuzzslashed song, and his band delivers them with an intense and infectious energy. Wide slashes of guitar ring out over a bedrock of lockstep, frantic rhythm, with sweetness coming from hyperactive melodies and dabs of clear analogue organ. It’s impossible to tell if Dwyer is going to kiss you or kick you swiftly in the pelvis; he exudes a strange mix of swagger, charm and violence in the way he brutalises his guitar and hollers in his cartoonish yelp. For the most part, songs came out at a speedy, almost indistinguishable clip of la-la-las and fuzz that had the crowd sweating and dancing spasmodically or at least nodding and TAPPING A FOOT; “Meat Step Lively” and “Warm Slime” got the warmest reactions and the most energetic workthroughs. Leavening out the sweat were some mainly instrumental jams that were both teasing and captivating, working down the sonic assault to a soft thump, only to erupt again; there was even a drum solo which made drum solos seem infinitely appealing AND THIS IS DIFFICLT TO DO. The climax came with the closer as Dwyer ran into the audience, guitar precariously kept close, willing some chaos out of the crowd, which was received. When it was over, John took the flowers someone gave him as the crowd dispersed, realising it was unlikely they would derive as much fun from sweating for the rest of the summer.