Aardvark Birthday Weekender @ The Aardvark
w/ Greg Dear & The Beautiful Losers, Unicorn, Aretinos, PMX, The Shops, Wayward Johnson & The Adjustment
Friday, August 26, 2022
Five short years ago The Norfolk’s tired Oddfellow stepped aside for The Aardvark and since then Freo’s famous labyrinth burrow bar has continued to gush original music. This first night of the birthday weekender was no exception, delivering an evening of gothic pop, post-punk, country and three rockin’ divas.
In an unfamiliar first slot, Greg Dear & The Beautiful Losers’ menacing dark pop hurled slabs of Dear’s growling baritone and cantankerous chops deep into the rapidly filling chambers. Those close in steered clear of his Phyllis Diller-do, wheeling right arm and thrusting Fender. Jephasun stage-right curled over the synth like a feasting hyena, while the Kent/Hoffman engine-room cranked. Each song a salutary tale, the set a requiem.
Unicorn‘s voracious Jenna Hardie leveraged her bare-teeth moody alt-rock bangers off Doug May’s spooky guitar craftings, underpinned by Munro and June’s rampant back-line alliance. New releases Cats and Circus underlined Hardie’s inclination to sculpt meaningful messages from personal experience. No Unicorn kit this time, but there was shimmer under those hot red Aardvark lights to balance out May’s compelling silhouette.
Aretinos’ fem art-rock performances are loaded with Eileen Glynn’s innate sense of theatre, and her implacable stand-and-deliver swagger was mesmerising set against the bands primal stampeding rhythms.
Ghost’s pulse overlaid Glynn’s wanton vox with lush passive-aggressive classic rock lines laced with a hint of primeval vixen. This set dialled Dear’s ‘menace’ up to ‘armada,’ while their PJ Harvey cover Dress to round it out was gold.
PMX’s (Paige McNaught Experience) first outing with new members Raph and Shane confidently paid Tim Underwood’s legacy forward. Not long in and Paige, sans guitar, stepped forward onto a bass bin to lean out over the mosh. Her wide-eyed gaze is otherworldly and it boils with rich unconfected passion. PMX unleashes music for the body and the bodies close in were moving. Seek out Short Fuse, My Desire and Medicine, and expect continued evolution into 2023.
The Shops’ ever watchable frontman Sean Gorman writes idiosyncratic post-punk for this project, which stood in contrast to the earlier four acts, moving to hypnotic heavier rock later in the set. Louis Inglis on drums combined his disciplined lockstep with flourishes, and the more Gorman wrapped himself around the lyrics the more he drew the room in. Mesmeric.
Wayward Johnson & The Adjustment are a refined unit. Charm and wit infused, they kicked the volume up a notch with gun-slinging country originals. With clarity and definition around all instruments, every song was a cracker-jack top-shelf hayshed rocket. Opener State We’re In showed their wide open heart, melancholic Suburban Town beefed it up and Broken Dollar Dream felt like a kitchen table jam. Great presence, and all class.
Words and Photos by Alan Holbrook
