Photo: Sarah Keayes

After reading about the John Steel Singers excellent live show, it’s refreshing to have my expectations met. The six onstage achieve an excellent full rock sound: keys, guitars, bass and drums combine with several voices, resulting in a tasty musical fruit salad. They’re clearly enjoying gigging regularly around Brisbane; get thee to a JSS show, if you haven’t already.

Comparisons between Andrew Morris and a certain Mr Fanning are inescapable; in an alternate universe, Morris is the one selling hundreds of thousands of records, but alas. His deft fingerwork and strong voice are evident throughout a set consisting mostly of material from latest album, Union Bars. His band Youngbuck is exceptionally tight, injecting welcome doses of kazoo, handclaps and humour into the mix. Morris and friends provide fine complement to the country-rock stylings of tonight’s headliner.

Despite critical acclaim, it’s taken The Panics several years to achieve undoubtedly well-deserved notoriety. New album Cruel Guards has reached their widest audience yet, thanks largely to Don’t Fight It, the excellent first single. It’s that special kind of universally enjoyable song that would do well on commercial radio, if only for the idiots in control of such institutions. It’s a joy to witness the band’s unique sound, accompanied by an adoring, perfectly respectful sold out Zoo crowd. Singer Jae Laffer nods his head to the beat of each song with absolute conviction: he knows just as well as the audience that each track from their latest album is an absolute winner. The sparkling keys and driving guitars of 2004’s Cash merge to create what is easily one of the greatest songs of this decade. The encore consists of two older tracks: the hauntingly beautiful In Your Head, which highlights Laffer’s unique voice and brilliant lyrics; and This Day Last Year, “one of the first songs we ever wrote”. Funny, that – it’s one of the best.

ANDREW MCMILLEN

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