Nightlife - Sun Oct 18

Things are done differently on the Gold Coast. When we pull up to an unsigned building in an industrial estate, with a bunch of punks loitering in the parking lot, we stumble across the site of punk legends The Dwarves’ only Queensland show. Opening act Mediocore are playing when the bulk of tonight’s crowd is still hanging out in the aforementioned parking lot – but in spite of the empty space in the room, the band’s evil rock & roll sounds tight. Perth act Extortion straddle the line between hardcore and grindcore expertly. Their buzzsaw guitar tones and blast beats whip the pit into a flurry of slam dancing. Gold Coast punk act Vicious have a fiercely loyal support amongst the local crowd tonight. By the time they close with Been Out Drinkin’, half the pit is onstage.

Strutting around the stage like Mick Jagger high on Viagra, Dwarves frontman Blag Dahlia comments that the band are “rock legends” so many times, it’s hard not to agree. Crammed into the claustrophobic, humid, no-stage upstairs room of Nightlife, Blag is wildly charismatic and the rest of the band is playing with rabid intensity, sucking back drinks offered up by the crowd. One shirtless security guard’s efforts are largely useless as the crowd spills over the foldback during The Dwarves’ iconic odes to teenage sexual frustration like Back Seat Of My Car and Let’s Fuck. Pop-based tracks like Salt Lake City and Everybody’s Girl provide brief respite from the hardcore madness. A whirlwind of nudity and violence, The Dwarves set is punctuated with the immortal classic Fuck You Up And Get High. Dropping their instruments and walking through the crowd at the end of the show, seeing The Dwarves is like reliving your teenage romantic encounters, brief but totally awesome.

TOM HERSEY

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