As Flaming Wrekage’s brutal fourth album tickles your earholes, you know this is something special. …
Against Me! with Camp Cope and Mere Women – Manning Bar, Sydney – 11 May, 2017
So here’s a cool fact for the day; there were more women and transgender musicians on stage than men at the Mere Women, Camp Cope, Against Me gig in Sydney. Promoters, pat yourselves on the back, that was one hell of a line up.
Mere Women’s brand of off-kilter take on punk was a weirdly comfortable way to ease into the evening. With the impending Against Me moshpit promising wild times, it was nice to just kick back and let the sort of surfy, sort of psyched post-punk was over before the madness began. Amy Wilson’s warbling, often high-pitched vocals seemed to draw a few nods from the riot grrrl scene without the grit and dust, but with the right amount of reverb to conjure up a horror vibe. The sort of sounds you’d hear in an 80s thriller, when the secondary character takes too many drugs at a beach party and completely freaks out. Not that there were any drugs at the show. Punks are well-behaved people.
Mere Woman by Peter Zaluzny
Mere Woman by Peter Zaluzny
The evening was a double headliner in some ways, or at least it seemed to be, what with Camp Cope pulling almost as many punters as Against Me, who drowned out singer/guitarist Georgia Maq time and again with their enthusiastic mosh-choruses. These days, there’s not much more to say about the band’s live show that hasn’t already been said, since they’ve relentlessly hit the road time and again to showcase their debut record. Their indie garage folk-punk still emanates a kind of beauty that makes you want to listen for days and days, their cutting, socially conscious lyrics are still some of the most important statements coming out of local scene, and Georgia is still one of the most endearing musicians around.
Georgia McDonald – Camp Cope by Peter Zaluzny
Sarah Thompson & Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich – Camp Cope by Peter Zaluzny
She sings with the power and confidence of a veteran artist, seamlessly switching between fiercely delivered, frustrated stories surrounding women’s issues, and slowing things down for deep, introspective moments where she invites the audience into her life. But once the song is over, it’s all ums, ahs, smiles and laughs with a sort of nervous trepidation that anyone who’s been before an audience (including primary school speeches), can relate to.
It’s easy enough to go on and on about Against Me!’s skills on stage. They’re tight, brilliant, enthusiastic performers with all the hard hitting punk hallmarks that get the blood flowing on the dance floor.
While Against Me! has never been anything short of a fantastic punk outfit, the bands shows have taken on a new tone since frontwoman Laura Jane Grace came out as transgender and wrote two albums on the subject. On the one hand, you’re still guaranteed a good old fashioned sweaty night in the mosh, but the gigs have also become something of a show of solidarity. There’s no politics, Laura Jane doesn’t spend the night on her soapbox preaching trans-rights and roundly smashing any anti-queer agendas. The message, at any Against Me! show, is a personal one, where the band want you to know that it’s important to feel comfortable in your own skin, and that their shows are a safe space to do just that.
Against Me! by Peter Zaluzny
In Sydney, it didn’t matter if you were trans, queer, straight, where you were from or where you were going (as long as you were from a positive place) because for many, the show was a chance to celebrate personal identity that the rest of the world may not quite understand yet. There was so much love in that room—so many smiles as Laura Jane triumphantly tore into the mic time after time, so many ecstatic hugs and shared screams when each chorus rolled around. Everyone was free to be themselves, and the outpouring of support towards the woman leading the charge was overwhelming.
Of course, that didn’t diminish the classics at all. Against Me! fans are nothing if not committed, and even those that had discovered the band during Laura Jane’s transition had made the effort to dig into the back catalogue and learn the words to I was a Teenage Anarchist, Pints of Guinness Make You Strong and the heart-tearingly beautiful Sink, Florida, Sink among others. Almost every song came with a riotous uproar from the almost sold-out room that left the band, and particularly Laura, with a bunch of big dumb grins on their faces.
Laura Jane Grace – Against Me! by Peter Zaluzny
Most of Against Me!’s newer songs from the last two records, Shape Shift with Me and Transgender Dysphoria Blues, seem to have been written with live singalongs and a sense of unity in mind. Getting together and staring down all the bullshit that bubbles up when adversity rears its ugly head. It doesn’t come across when you’re on the train at 9am playing the tunes on your iPod, but when you find some strangers in the pit, throw your arms around each other’s shoulders belt out “all the devils that you don’t know, can all come along for the ride” during 333, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. So when the time came to scream with Unconditional Love, Rebecca and Black Me Out, in all its anthemic glory, the roof was almost blown from its foundations.
Inge Johansson – Against Me! by Peter Zaluzny
It’s easy enough to go on and on about Against Me!’s skills on stage. They’re tight, brilliant, enthusiastic performers with all the hard hitting punk hallmarks that get the blood flowing on the dance floor. Watching Laura Jane and an unashamedly excited Georgia Maq cover Androgynous by The Replacements was wonderful. Seeing her kick off the encore with a solo acoustic rendition of The Mountain Goats’ The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton was awe-inspiring, as she commanded the kind of attention that that left the room in stunned silence. But moments like these aren’t the reason an Against Me show is so special. The joy comes from walking into a room filled with hundreds of people you haven’t met, and feeling totally safe and comfortable knowing that in some way, everyone there is your friend. Who would’ve thought we’d have a bunch of noisy, gnarly, heartfelt punks to thank for that.
