Pop Will Eat Itself @ Rosemount Hotel
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Regarded as pioneers for their fusion of samples and loops with live guitars in the early nineties, Pop Will Eat Itself returned to Perth for the first time since 2018 to take those brave enough to venture out on a school night down memory lane and back to halcyon days of indie discos and the like.
The group performed two sets on the night; set one was dedicated to a live play through of 1989’s groundbreaking LP This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This!, while set two was a whip through of the group’s greatest hits and fan favourites.
Kicking off with This Is This!’s intro PWEI Is A Four Letter Word, the six-piece launched their full sonic attack proper with a brash version of the heavy metal guitar cum sample-heavy Preaching To The Perverted. Troubled by sound with their samples hindered seminal track Wise Up! Sucker though dual vocalists, Graham Crabb on megaphone and Mary Byker on back-ups, continue to do everything they could to hype the crowd. After both urging people to come forward and let loose, it was finally with the one-two punch of Inject Me and Can U Dig It? that the number of both people and shapes being thrown on the dance floor started to increase.
The set lagged a little in its tail-end, with the late eighties hip-hop flavour of Radio P.W.E.I sounding very dated, but the band steered back on course with the Funky Drummer flavoured Not Now James, We’re Busy… and alternative rock sounding album closer Wake Up! Time To Die.
The second set was more energetic, with many punters now loosened up and happy to beguile their bodies into reliving their youths. Highlights included such early nineties indie mainstays such as Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies and Everything’s Cool, where the band and the audience’s energies finally began to synergise. Acknowleding the absent original lead vocalist Clint Mansell, the band really gave their all with industrial juggernaut Ich Bin Ein Auslander before closing the set with the bombastic Their Law.
While it goes without saying that times have certainly changed since the release of This Is This!, and age may have wearied many, the gig showed that Poppies’ are still able to warm a crowd up and that their live energy continues to be infectious all these years later.
MICHAEL HOLLICK
