RHUM

It’s official, Gareth Liddiard has become incomprehensible. It’s been coming on for a while now and it’s a damn shame. Liddiard’s songs are great stories, or they used to be until it all turned into one long ocker snarl with rhythmic pauses for breathing and noise. You should see the way he twists upwards towards that too high mic, like a snake or a horse or a devil. The Drones @ the Annandale Hotel, Sydney. 4 March 2010

I’ve never seen The Annandale so full before. The arhythmic crowd, unschooled in how to let their bodies move, were throwing up their arm unconscious arms with that old gesture of praise. The Drones were so good I got bored. There’s only so much heightened experience a body can stand before it starts to feel normal.
 
Something happened in The Annandale tonight but I don’t what it is. My bet is we won’t be seeing The Drones play in pubs anymore. They’re too big. I’m not talking about the size of their fan base but something less definable than ticket sales. The Drones now sound like a stadium band. I’m going to blame Mike[Casa]Noga, he has improved as a drummer but instead of honing in on Liddiard’s snarling story songs Noga’s gone stadium rock on us but this can’t be the only reason.
 
If I knew what it was that pushed this band from pub to stratosphere I’d tell you, but I don’t. We’re going to have to put it down as undefinable, a sudden screaming need of the collective unconscious to hear what this band needs to play.
 
Bassist Fiona Kitschin annoys the shit out of me. Unless she’s singing straight into the mic she plays with her back to the crowd. Fiona, you are onstage, get over it or get off it. Dan Luscombe is starting to make some fine noise with that guitar of his, Liddiard is the chief noisemaker, and they do make some noise, but Luscombe is finally starting to stand his ground and live up to the legend of Rui Pereira.
 
There was something not quite right about the crowd, they were almost bogans, I’m going to call them drogans. It seemed to me that they organised themselves into factions before the show, one faction in faded old t-shirts and the other garbed in blue checked and collared shirts. If there had been a battle my money would have been on the t-shirts for victory and the collared shirts to sit bloody and beaten in a row in the gutter.
 
The Drones were grand, too good, but I don’t think I enjoyed it. There was too much pressure to mark the moment, too many holding their breath to remember this gig as the one, the final one before The Drones bust of pubs and make it to the Big Time. And of course I hate that old trick of harsh white light thrown from the back of stage out over the crowd signalling the glorious end.