Review: OFF! at Rosemount Hotel

OFF! at Rosemount Hotel
w/ Party Dozen, Last Quokka
Wednesday, January 10, 2024

It doesn’t matter what day it is; true music fans will happily show up early enough to face a locked venue door, and last Wednesday at The Rosemount was no exception. The ones patient enough to line up were rewarded with a slightly muffled taste of the night to come, with soundcheck still in progress.

Once doors finally opened, the Rosie’s at times daunting main room filled quickly for local openers, Last Quokka, with the group’s frontman greeting punters against the barricade with handshakes and high fives. An energetic mix of punk and pub rock was thrashed away at feverishly from the first note. Their lyrics displayed a unique form of honest patriotism for Western Australia, singing about various mining magnates and culminating in a chant of “What school did you go to?” Maybe more energy than the audience was ready for so early, especially for the singers several ventures amongst the slightly stunned punters. But the growing audience was still warm and welcoming in numbers.

Looking at an empty stage between acts, some may have found themselves pondering, ‘How is a sax and drums duo going to fill out the sound?’ However, when Party Dozen appeared, it became instantly clear. Fat electronic sounds inexplicably beamed, backed by a trance-like groove, before saxophonist Kirsty Tickle screamed into her instruments’ bell with a look of passionate terror in her eyes. Saxophone is in danger of becoming stale, but she’s taking it to strange new places. The two musicians showcased an impressively eclectic musical range within their unique style and creative use of technology. Soundscapes ranged from Bebop rave to Chicago Blues in space, with distortion sounds on the sax at times reminiscent of harmonica. Tickle’s instrument looked as light as a feather while she scurried from one side of the stage to the other. Eyes locked with the crowd, enticing more of them closer. Party Dozen have a sound that will truly leave you wondering, ‘how?’

Gritty fuzz filled the room to greet OFF! guitarist Dimitri Coats as he fiddled about in a box of secret gadgets on the side of the stage, his equivalent to a witch’s cauldron. Singer Keith Morris used his microphone as a drumstick to accompany the fuzz, which was broken by four quick high-hat hits before Slice Up the Pie was served. The band furiously rolled through a slightly shuffled order of their most recent album, Free LSD. The stop-starting and tempo changes of War Above Los Angeles became gloriously dizzying. Black Widow Group and its similar tempo qualities helped blur the lines between songs.

It didn’t take long for some of the more energetic attendees to move towards the front and centre to show how a performance of this nature is done. While small, some enthusiastic pushing and shoving ensued. A slight childlike quality was present among the moshers. At some points, it looked more like barn dancing and games of ‘Ring Around a Rosie’, as opposed to slam dancing and circle pits. It was welcome energy nonetheless for OFF!’s drummer, Mario Rubalcaba, who had the challenging task of holding down the blistering tempos with great vigour. The rhythm section seemed somewhat opposite to each other; Rubalcaba was ferociously keeping time, while bassist Autry Fulbright II followed along unflustered. Coats thrashed back and forth with his guitar, while Morris rocked and swayed centre stage as he delivered fiery lyrics with a snarling scream. Between songs, his sneering, bizarre banter sometimes got lost over the walls of droning fuzz and feedback.

One of the more memorable pieces of banter started as a geography lesson in their home state of California. Specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area, and a man there by the name of Owsley, who provided the inspiration for the album’s title track. Roughly three seconds of silence at the end of the song, the longest period of silence in the whole show, signalled the end of the Free LSD portion of the show.

Without interruption, Void You Out and Red White and Black, the opening pair from 2014’s Wasted Years, flashed by almost instantly. A small suite of 2010’s First Four EPs, including Black Thoughts and I Don’t Belong, brought out a slight surge of audience enthusiasm. Seeming to finally give over to the vortex of sound presented to them, they chanted along to the latter song’s title. This swirling and shuffling was maintained right through to Poison City and its subsequent feedback. And then, it just stopped. All the instruments stopped ringing, and it was all over, leaving all in their wake to try and gather their thoughts.

OFF! almost played to parody their own name. When they play, they are never off; there is a constant flow of sound, action, and energy. This was very much a show you must immerse yourself in and engage with for maximum understanding and impact.

AJ MAHAR

Photos by Linda Dunjey