Photo Credit: Nate Hill – https://www.natehillphotography.com.au/
Spiderbait are one of Australia’s biggest bands of all time, little did the 3 piece know what was ahead of their long journey which started in rural NSW, Australia back in 1989. Spiderbait engulfed the hearts, minds and airwaves of the young and young at heart for the next 3 decades throughout Australia and lands far beyond.
Spiderbait celebrated their 30 year anniversary at the charismatic Forum Theatre in Melbourne, the heart of Australia’s music capital. The atmosphere at The Forum was electric for the nostalgic show that came coupled with a special limited edition 7 inch vinyl box set release, yesss please!
The concept behind the anniversary show was to play every single in chronological order from the very beginning of Spiderbait’s lengthy career. The set exploded with Circle K whilst not leaving an opportunity for the punters heads to stop banging or feet to stop tapping, it felt like a rhythmic/melodic freight train ripping through the building, a truly addictive, give me more kind of feeling.
Throughout the decades Spiderbait has managed to maintain their youthful, alluring, powerful rawness whilst creating music over time that has obviously become more mature and finely adept. Spiderbait indulged the highly enthusiastic crowd with their tightly manicured set with the ease of which only a well oiled emotion machine such as Spiderbait can.
Kram’s powerful, rhythmic drumming, Damian’s melodic bar chords and Janet’s solid bass playing/sublime vocals shook the Forum and it’s charged occupants to the core. Throughout the highly charged set, the band maintained a very grass roots, wholesome vibe, with expressions of gratitude towards fans shown many times throughout the course of the night.
Crowd favourites ‘Buy Me A Pony’, ‘Black Betty’, ‘Old Man Sam’ thundered through the well versed crowd with great jubilant anticipation. No stone was left unturned, this was one show that no Spiderbait fan could possibly walk away from with any hint of dissatisfaction. As one member of the crowd loudly wailed, “I can die now!!”.
Words: Chris Brooks
