Jan
30
1.17pm

THE FRONT BOTTOMS // With The Hard Aches At The Brightside, Brisbane


The Front Bottoms & The Hard Aches
The Brightside, Brisbane
Sunday, January 29

New Jersey power-pop punks, The Front Bottoms, are back in town on their own headline gig, just two years after their last run through this fine country when they played second string to The Smith Street Band.

Two years can change a bunch of things. For one, people seem to know-slash-care about The Front Bottoms now. Sure, they’re not playing the biggest venues in the country, but selling out The Brightside on a Sunday night in Brisbane isn’t a small feat.

Arriving at the venue about fifteen minutes before doors open there are a handful of punters around, maybe twenty, ranging from 18 to 30.  I ordered a few cups of water (just previously I had chowed a chicken burger, downed a beer and finished an extreme duel of Big Buck Hunter Pro at a nearby bar in the notorious Brisbane humidity; water was like gold for me) and waited, looking as cool and as nonchalant as I knew how, for the doors to open.

Within ten minutes a line forms, snaking all the way onto the street, consuming most of the punters hanging outside. Pretty good commitment for an 18+ plus crowd at a power-pop punk show to see two bands play. Doors open; people run to the front like kids run from strangers with candy; I get a stool in front of a ledge opposite an old punk with a yellow Teenage Bottle Rocket shirt and pink hair he put in a ponytail.

At 8:45 The Hard Aches take the stage to a half packed venue, a quarter of which sporting Hard Aches merch already. The two-piece from Adelaide are tight and clean from the get go, sending fans into a sing-a-long-head-bobbing euphoria. Landing huge tour slots over the last year and selling out shows on their own headline tour supporting their latest EP I Freak Out, The Hard Aches’ simple, high-energy brand of punk anthems have seen them enjoy a huge rise in popularity—the five-row-deep mosh pit for an opening band should be evidence enough of that.

The venue slowly fills up as vocalist/guitarist Ben David keeps relentlessly singing in the microphone and sweating over the front row of the crowd. Their DIY aesthetic compliment the hard, raw, sonic musings the band deliver so well, and the amount of energy and stage presence generated by two dudes, a guitar and a drum was hypnotic.

They finish. The room fills up. The smell of sweat, steam and spilt beer fill the air: the intimate ambiance of a punk rock show.

It’s packed pretty tight as the now full venue anticipates the shape of the night to come, and I notice what seems to be the only working air-conditioner in the joint. No wonder it’s so fucking hot and stinks of sweaty undies. I want a cold beer but don’t want to give up my seat. The pink-haired, pony-tailed bloke in the Teenage Bottle Rocket t-shirt opposite me is throwing ‘em down, and looking bloody comfortable too. Maybe it’s cooler on that side of the room; maybe he just doesn’t care. He see’s me looking at him, gives me a wink then takes a skull.

The lights go down; the crowd roars and pushes toward the front. The lady next to me screams and claps, drowning me in sweat ricocheting of every damp thud of her hands. It’s actually very satisfying in this humidity.

The Front Bottoms take the stage and Tom DeLonge Brian Sella walks on stage to a huge cheer and greets us with, “Hey, we’re The Front Bottoms from New Jersey. Are you ready for some Sunday night rock n’ roll?”

Sella’s urgent acoustic guitar and nasal-heavy pop-punk voice opens straight into ‘Skeleton’, a bouncy tune from Talon of the Hawk. A prefect mesh of the band’s style of Motion City Soundtrack inspired loops, synths and emotionally packed songwriting, then ‘HELP’, as the packed and sweaty Brisbane crowd sang the chorus and outro with Sella, jumping along in pop music ecstasy.

The Front Bottoms are a band that started making a name for themselves at a time when most of the American youth found themselves squashed by the pressures of debt, college loans, unemployment, shit-kicking part-time jobs and the ever looming prospect of living in your mum’s basement, or in shady situations, on a twin size mattress. They might not be the answer, but they’re an outlet

It was song after song after song; The Front Bottoms didn’t fuck around when it came to stage banter. Nothing was said that didn’t need to be said. They got through the 17 song set quickly, but not with any sense of rush or urgency. Professional and tight, like the veterans they were becoming. We were witnessing the polished product of years of hard work, touring and support slots.

Their charming and warped brand of indie pop and punk rock continue throughout their set. Themes of being stoned, jealous, alone and confused are all touched on at least once during the set, whether it be on ‘Motorcycle’, crowd favourite ‘The Plan (Fuck Jobs)’, ‘Cough It Out’, or the emo progressions of ‘Swimming Pool’.

‘Twin Size Mattress’ goes off as the last song before the encore. Old Mate Pink Pony Tail opposite me is losing his shit, raising his arm and bouncing his head, shouting the lyrics back at Sella with enough passion to evoke a riot:

“She hopes I’m cursed forever / To sleep on a / Twin size mattress /
In somebody’s attic or basement my whole life / Never graduating up in size to add another / And my nightmares will have nightmares every night”

They finish the night with a completely acoustic version of ‘Twelve Feet Deep’, a flawless rendition of ‘Peach’, then ‘Plastic Flowers’ as the endnote, though without the mid-song monologue—perhaps the only disappointment of the night.

The Front Bottoms are a band that started making a name for themselves at a time when most of the American youth found themselves squashed by the pressures of debt, college loans, unemployment, shit-kicking part-time jobs and the ever looming prospect of living in your mum’s basement, or in shady situations, on a twin size mattress. They might not be the answer, but they’re an outlet—just look at the sell out crowd of over 18’s singing along to every song with a hopeful optimism or regret fuelled wisdom.

Sure, the key selling point of The Front Bottoms are the catchy sing-a-long choruses, but the backbone of the music is in Sella’s ability to craft idiosyncratic emotionally-crippled cries with an incredibly rich, amusing and sometimes rude lexicon combined with the instrumental versatility of a power pop or ska band. Their live show is faultless; watertight—much like their predecessors The Get Up Kids, Weezer and Motion City Soundtrack.

I leave as soon as the last note of Plastic Flowers rings out the venue, snagging a cup of water to have on my walk back to the car, thinking about the long drive back to my mum’s basement, to share a twin size mattress with my girlfriend, and how I got to wake up at 6:00am to write this review then go work at my shit-kicking part time job. Ain’t life dandy.



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