Photo: Elleni Toumpas

Making the journey up the hallowed steps of The Zoo tonight, I’m immersed in a very strong sense of déjà vu while witnessing the opening chords of The Cairos. Now a fairly regular appearance in the local scene, this might be the third time I’ve seen them and lead member Alistar Richardson is still pushing the ‘troubled youth’ angle, right down to the same tattered sweater. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that their curious mélange of post-punk and progressive rock (yeah, you heard me) is tightly wound with kinetic energy, but there just needs to be something else to them to differentiate them from the pack and promote them out of the perennial first act status. Perhaps some silly hats, or a fictional backstory about one of the members being raised to teenage years by stray dogs in New Farm Park? Get in touch, I’m sure we can work something out.

It’s tough to see a band such as The Scare treated with such crowd-wide apathy, without a hometown advantage to even act as a security blanket. All the ingredients were there: catchy songs, an athletic and energetic band steered by limber-limbed singer Kiss Reid and a decent level of hype surrounding the band – their most recent album was produced by Silverchair’s Daniel Johns – but this Brisbane crowd wasn’t having any of it. It honestly looked like a dry English sitcom making a statement about uptight repression – no jumping and men in makeup, please…we’re from Brisbane. It possibly didn’t help that some early flyers had the band advertised as The Score, but that’s another argument for another day.

Having previously seen them lumber through a set supporting Primal Scream – who had plenty of lumbering for all – it’s amazing to see Wolf & Cub tonight as four individual barrels full of energy, combining to make a super battle barrel-robot that feeds on the cheers of audiences. Of course, Seven Sevens is the dance floor mover that you want it to be, the fluid basslines from Tom Mayhew colliding with their ultra-percussive ensemble to get the hands of all and sundry up in the air. But it is the more Kraut-inspired driving of their first album that fires the crowd up tonight, digging themselves into many deep grooves. This Mess lives up to its name, a mish-mash of hard rock riffs and relentless drum fills with an extended instrumental section that allows plenty of room for things to get a little bit weird. A fan of a trippy psychedelic freak-out as much as the next guy (if the next guy was Jerry Garcia), it was good to see that this band’s constant touring has allowed them to determine the fine line between exploration and self-indulgence … something that the Grateful Dead leader never quite grasped. Even Joel Byrne seems more of an astute and attention-attracting frontman than on previous tours, keen to trade licks with Mayhew (as much as you can trade licks between a guitar and a bass) or throw the occasional thousand-yard stare over the heads of the crowd.

MITCH ALEXANDER

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