Spiderbait Songs in the Key of J @ Metropolis Fremantle
w/ Legs Electric, The Shakeys
Friday, August 19, 2022
On paper this looked like Spiderbait’s best and bravest tour yet. Kram’s Buy Me a Pony and cover of Black Betty may be the Finley, NSW’s band’s best known tunes, but bassist Janet English’s songs have always been Spiderbait’s best. Songs in the Key of J, both a double album and tour, are a celebration of one of Australia’s original 90s riot grrrls.
Sticking with the femme punk theme, The Shakeys opened the night early at 7:15pm, saying “Thank you punctual people!” to the early arrivals. Still fresh from the release of debut album Mob Mentality last year, they delivered straight up rock as much as punk, with blistering SG guitar solos and Joan Jett t-shirts the perfect accompaniment. Teenage Hearts was an anthemic highlight, as was the new album’s title track to close their set.
Legs Electric did their best to steal the show up second, making the most of Metropolis Fremantle’s lighting rig and a whole lotta hair for a glam metal set par excellence. All they needed was a lighters in the air power ballad to seal the deal, and lead singer Ama Quinsee even looks oddly like Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach. Perhaps the odd ones out musically, it didn’t stop the night’s only all-girl band being its most (fucken) awesome. In fact, a friend who didn’t know any of the bands on the night declared them best on ground.
For this reviewer, Spiderbait still earned that honour, but it wasn’t a perfect set. Most of Janet’s best songs are sub-two minute slices of punk which meant 90 minutes was about a half hour longer than it needed to be. The chronological setlist set a tone of nostalgia, and also meant the first half hogged a lot of favourites, although they balanced this by saving a few classics for the encore and throwing in a lot of songs pretty much never played live. For hardcore Spiderbait fans, this was the real gold, but in true punk form a lot of this material was under-rehearsed and fell flat next to the obvious bangers.
And there were plenty of bangers. Legendary early tracks Jesus, Yeah Oh Yeah, Conjunctivitis and Hot Water and Milk made for an epic start to the night. Goin’ Off and Glokenpop are a couple of fan faves that will hopefully stay in the set a little longer; the former a one minute ditty played solo on an acoustic guitar by Janet drew giggles from the crowd, while the latter was, hands down, the track of the night. Never one to be outshone, it featured drummer extraordinaire Kram playing glockenspiel, guitar and drums all at once, and was a gorgeously organic version of its glossy studio counterpart.
Bessie’s Last Journey, an acoustic duet with Kram, fared less well and could be left in the shed in future. Likewise, the mopey Inner Ear Infection was a good time for a toilet break. Stevie, on the other hand, is classic Spiderbait and they just need to play it better – perhaps deep down they’re a punk band and playing straight pop-rock isn’t a strong suit.
Highlights were spotted throughout the set’s second half. Fucken Awesome was exactly what the packaging suggested. The Sun Will Come Shining and It’s Beautiful are both latter day Spiderbait songs to fall in love with, all psychedelic hooks and catchy as hell. And a few carefully chosen bangers made the encore worth holding out for, notably Alex the Seal which Janet dedicated to “all the women in bands” including the night’s supports, Footy about “being from a small town where all the guys play football… and the girls do fuck all,” and a finale of Spiderbait’s greatest song, Calypso: kicked off by Whit on Janet’s mum’s old nylon string guitar – the guitar it was written on – he soon traded it for an electric as they rocked the venue’s foundations one last time.
In the end, a great idea felt like a missed opportunity, albeit that it was a super fun night. For those curious about a sliding doors moment to see what it would’ve been like had Janet formed her own riot grrrl act railing against the “really sleazy” misogyny of the 90s and become a front person circa 1996, we’ll never know because despite being the singer, she simply wasn’t the host.
This was Spiderbait after all, and Kram is the charismatic leader, and unfortunately on this night his unstoppable personality walked a fine line between entertaining and unnecessary given Janet was the focus. Nonetheless, it was a chance to get more emotionally involved in one of the band’s shows, and celebrate one of Australia’s very best, if often criminally overlooked, songwriters.
HARVEY RAE
Photos by Adrian Thomson
