CAPTIVES & BORN LION: Rocking The Bendigo In Spades

CAPTIVES & BORN LION with Waves & Young Offenders
The Bendigo Hotel, Melbourne
Friday, 23rd February, 2018

The Bendigo Hotel was in full swing Friday night as Tasmania’s Captives and Sydney’s Born Lion kicked off their Born Captive Tour. 

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Newcomers to the scene and Melbourne locals, Waves opened up the evening playing incredibly well for what they announced was their first ever gig together. Lead singer Lisa Marie was dynamic and engaging. The band looked like they were having a ball on stage and it must be said that it always warms the heart to see opening acts sticking around for the whole night to show support. Well done!

Second band Young Offenders hailing from Adelaide were lamentably one man down due to oversights by the notoriously fickle budget airline Jetstar preventing bassist Anthony Katern from being present. Sans bassist, guitarist Kyle Landman cranked his amp and pushed his phaser pedal to 11 keeping steady with drummer Leigh Shags, conducting themselves professionally so that you wouldn’t even know there was a bassist in the first place. If you haven’t heard this band before, think UK band The Dirty Pretty Things meeting The Ataris at the bottom of a piña colada after a full day of skating around sun-kissed LA.

Young Offenders // Rick Clifford

​​Where Young Offenders lacked a bass, Sydney’s Born Lion made up for in spades: they must get this all the time, but Nathan is the tallest bassist going around! Accompanying him was Andres on drums, a.k.a. impressive ‘stache-man, Red on guitar, a.k.a. Justin Timberlake, and fronting the band on vocals and guitar was Hunter S. Thompson’s stylist, more commonly known as John. This band accosted its audience with great harmonies, aggressive harmonic chordal breakdowns and succeeded in kicking the vibe up a notch.  It’s nice to see a band fuck around with time signatures mid-song and not fall apart. Kudos to Andres for really holding it all together with his powers of rhythmic exactitude. Great use of harmonies and great charismatic performance by John up front that was very reminiscent of The Bronx.

Born Lion // By Rick Clifford

At long last, Captives took to the stage. The beer garden was emptied as every abled body made their way inside to witness the Tassie natives. Singer Aaron Damon wowed his crowd with effortless transitions from beautiful melody to screamo. This little piggy is definitely on a power play—or so their song goes—jumping into the audience screaming, spitting and spraying into the faces of the crowed, balancing off his foldback speaker while grasping the roof for balance and magnanimously telling his audience to “cop that” after the first song while switching mics with guitarist Marcus Wynwood as his was “shit”. Drummer Matthew Damon put on a flawless display locking in with bassist Ben Thomas-Gill, who in turn provided tight lower octave harmonies giving the songs a haunting resonance that fit well with the overall Captives sound. Refreshingly, guitarists Wynwood and Mitch Damon both opted for brighter guitar tones which served as a nice juxtaposition against the heavy key and aggression of their music. Hats off for an authentic rendition of Motorhead’s Ace of Spades played practically to perfection. Singer Aaron sang it in his own vocal style which was a great move as that was all that was needed to give the performance a feel of their own. The comradery between all bands featured on the line-up was tangible and was a prime example of musician solidarity at its best, most notably after a fantastic set by Captives, the band asked its audience to join them in a group photo waving the bird at Jetstar out of deference to Anthony Katern with a promise they would plaster it all over the Jetstar Facebook page.

Captives // By Rick Clifford

The Born Captive Tour continues, tickets available here.

Saturday 24th February, Ed Castle, Adelaide
Friday 2nd March, The Flamin’ Galah, Brisbane
Saturday, 3rd March, Chippo Hotel, Sydney