What else can you do on a Sunday night except fill your head with rock?
Melbourne natives, but over here (ish) Tequila Mockingbyrd proved when they played with Massive last year that they were more than adept when it came to live performances. Now, with the imminent European arrival of their debut album, “Fight Or Flight” the need to impress is perhaps even more pressing. No worries here though, as even without usual bass player Jess (she’s replaced on this tour by the striking Kiera) there is a passion about TM that suggests they’ll be here for a lot longer yet. Much of what they do celebrates the need for a good time (one of the songs they play in their 45 minute set has that as a title) and suggests that the time for a good time is right now. “Never Go Home” looks for trouble – and finds it – “So Not Me” struts and “Jagerbomb” is bluesy. On occasion they do trashy pretty well too, “Why Are We Still Friends?” is snotty as you like and the punky side to what they do is more thoroughly explored with a cover of The Ramones’ “Somebody Put Something In My Drink”. Ending with “I Smell Rock N Roll” – a fist pumping thumper – is perhaps apt, because Tequila Mockingbyrd have more than half a sniff of making it.
It is perhaps ironic that it is the headliners here that sound more like an Australian band than the actual Australian one.
Bonafide might be from Sweden, but they are more than familiar with the work of AC/DC – and to be fair, if you’re going to sound like someone when doing hard rock, make it the best hard rock band there is, right?
Pontus Snibb and his merry men have been doing this long enough to become very, very good at it themselves. New album “Flames” is merely the latest in a long line of brilliant releases from the band. They begin with its first – and near title – track here. It heralds an hour that is as much fun as could be reasonably rammed into 60 minutes too.
There are great old songs – “Dirt Bound” and “No Doubt About It” take care of the classic material in the early part – there are great new songs, like “Power Down” and the single “Smoke And Fire”, but this is about so much more.
There is a real sense that no one is taking this too seriously and it is all the better for it. Snibb and his bandmates Anders Rossell on guitar and Martin Ekelund on bass grin throughout as they practice their rock n roll poses and the giggles reach their peak, perhaps, when Ekelund is challenged to only play his instrument on “Loud Band” with down strokes of the strings, because “that’s rock n roll”. He does too.
This fantastic no frills approach even extends to the fact there is no messing about with the stupidity of encores. “Hard Living Man” and the anthemic “Fill Your Head With Rock” (dedicated to the “greatest man ever, John Bonham” by Snibb) would be that with other bands. Here they don’t need to be.
That’s because Bonafide understand the absolute basic premise that rock n roll is at its best when loud, obnoxious and above all fun. Sunday night this might have been, but you get the impression that to Bonafide and Tequila Mockingbyrd, every day is like Saturday. And having nothing but a good time (as Poison might have said) don’t get better than this.
