Chainsaw Hookers/Legs Electric
Astor Theatre
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Self-proclaimed – and rightly so, but more on that later – ‘best rock’n’roll band in the world’, The Supersuckers, finally reached the West Coast some 25 years since they started showed us how it’s done. But it wasn’t easy.
For various reasons there is no other way to write this review but in a personal way, so I apologise if this reads more like a rant. I got turned onto The Supersuckers soon after my arrival in Australia by a good friend. Since then they’ve provided hours of entertainment, through listening to their albums, and later, watching the live clips. There were periods when I would play almost nothing but them, but also times when we parted ways.
The new album hasn’t failed to deliver a bunch of loud rock’n’roll anthems and the band brought it on with this tour – unfortunately, in several disappointing occurrences that night, only live on stage, as they did not have any physical copies of it for sale.
The show was moved from the theatre to The Astor Lounge, which made it a lot closer to the action. Following sets from appropriately rockin’ supports, Chainsaw Hookers and Legs Electric, The Supersuckers walked on stage through the crowd and launched right into Get The Hell. What followed was a set of solid rock numbers off the new album, which was warmly accepted by the punters.
And that was when the next disappointment kicked in: there were what looked like a few handfuls of people in the audience – in any case, a lot less than such a band deserves, especially on their first visit to Perth. There could be many reasons for this and it’s better not to dwell too deeply into it, but the performance certainly deserved to be witnessed by a much bigger crowd.
There were also some sound issues. The volume was fine, but the vocals were buried too much in the back of the mix. However, none of these stopped the band from having fun on stage and actually showing why they rate themselves so highly – honestly, it’s hard to think of any other band who can claim to be the best rock’n’roll band in the world but The Supersuckers!
All of the clichés were there, but all of them worked and the band was amazingly super-tight. All that was missing were more people, but we who were there had fun. The new songs went really well, especially Pretty Fucked Up. Around a third of the set was allocated to older songs and while it would have been good to hear more material from their first two albums, one can’t really complain.
An hour or so later and it was over. Judging by the turnout, I doubt we will see The Supersuckers back in Perth ever again. Hopefully the minority of rock’n’roll lovers who gathered on a cold Wednesday night share the sentiment that it was well worth going out for.
PREDRAG DELIBASICH
The Supersuckers
Pic: Cole Maguire
