Review: Christian Stanger
Crowd photos: Mic O’brien
The Dead of Winter is a bit different this year. The last one I got to was in 2018 and it was like an occupation of Fortitude Valley. From the Jubilee Hotel to the adjoining carpark and up to The Tivoli, every available corner was home to Brisbane’s heavy music underground. Now years after disappearing into the shadows of Covid and the long recovery that followed, the festival has returned. The venue is different, but so is the city that birthed it. The lineup is stacked though; old mates are everywhere and there are still three stages ready to pull you in different directions.
Unfortunately, the commitments of fatherhood are getting in the way of a beer-soaked festival today. So Witchgrinder are, unfortunately, among the casualties, but enough people I speak to afterwards suggest I missed a punishing set of industrial groove and razor-sharp musicianship, coupled with a sizeable crowd reaction. Next time, fellas.
Arriving halfway through Pizza Death’s set only to discover there is only “one or two slices left”. The Melbourne crossover thrash outfit’s inflatables were long deployed, and they now busy themselves conducting an entirely unnecessary (and therefore entirely appropriate) poll on pineapple as a topping. The room splits down the middle before exploding into a wall of death over one of the most divisive of life’s questions. It’s ridiculous and hilarious and, like Pizza Death itself, it should not work on paper. So, you have to see them live to appreciate this kind of… thing.
Nicolas Cage Fighter take the stage in the main room as a three-piece which feels weird considering they were definitely a quartet last time I saw them. Apparently, their guitarist Justin broke his ankle earlier in the week and has spent the intervening days programming parts so the show could go on. If there was any sense of adversity, it never makes it to the stage. The remaining trio somehow manage to fill the considerable stage, with vocalist Nicholas Moriarty, once again proving a commanding presence, barking orders from the front as though normal service had resumed.
They bill themselves as humanity’s only hope, so I was happy to complete a side-quest and duck into Space X Dragon before Black Rheno. The band’s online footprint is tiny, but their reputation for a fully bought-in stage shows and committed on-stage personas precedes them. Slathered in some strange concoction of 80s space rock, psychedelic punk and absurd sci-fi, this product of Brisbane’s punk scene is one of today’s best discoveries.
The Sports Bar is packed for Black Rheno and the three-piece make full use of the stage and, for a band without a bass player, sound fucking huge. With a sound somewhere between sludge, hardcore and groove metal, that demolition derby sound definitely helps to set the tone, but as veterans of this sort of setting, they know to work the room. It’s 5pm now and the beers are flowing and limbs are flying in all directions. This could get out of hand.
But it’s side quest time to check out The Neptune Power Federation and the impossible vocals of Imperial Priestess Loz Sutch. If you’re looking for reference points, Euro-power-metal probably fits, but it’s all about the theatre. Even with the intricate headdress, Loz Sutch is commanding and magnetic, making it difficult to look anywhere else. I barely notice that half her bandmates are literally Frenzal Rhomb. But all too soon, it’s Astrodeath time, so I hightail it back to the Sports Bar for the duo.
What is it with these duos and trios that somehow manage to sound like lumbering giants? Astrodeath have no trouble keeping up the trend. Despite consisting of just a drummer and guitarist, they fill the Sports Bar with a monstrous wall of sound and keep the crowd firmly in their grasp. More importantly, they look like they’re having an absolute blast while issuing yet more blunt force trauma to punters now seven hours deep into this resurrected but thriving Dead of Winter. Their take on Black Sabbath‘s ‘Children of the Grave’ is something I never expected to hear today, but by this point Dead of Winter is apparently capable of anything.
Slim Krusty cuts an unlikely figure on the smaller stage in the main room tonight. With his face covered in tats, stretched lobes and scoundrel larrikin energy, he is the bloke you’d cross Ann Street at 2am to avoid, but he can still stop a room with a play on words or a heartbreaking lyric. He seems nervous and giddy, a little confronted by his popularity with a crowd of metalheads, but ultimately the set is unforgettable. The drug-fuelled humour of ‘Mystery Bag’ and heart-broken longing of ‘Ghosts’ show song-writing chops run deep and there’s way more going on here than first-impressions suggest.
The return of Sydney hardcore veterans Toe To Toe is high on the priority list for most punters tonight. The beats are hard and fast, the band appear to have barely aged, and it’s suddenly like they never left. However, I am told this is only their second show in the last nine years. The set is pummelling, all no-nonsense stuff as they move effortlessly between eras without missing a beat.
But again, the tyranny of the multi-stage festival intervenes. An SMS arrives towards the end of the set informing me that Rick Dangerous and the Silkie Bantams are delivering something special in the Sports Bar. I make a late dash to catch the final song (‘The General’), but that’s enough to convert me. A stage full of white shirts, ties and bespectacled blokes’ surrounds their chief as he screams (and helpfully re-enacts) “GRIP, SQUEEZE, TWIST, RELEASE” with such conviction that I instantly recoil. I feel robbed of whatever insanity led the room to this point.
Catching the final few songs of Mammal‘s set feels like a bonus at this point, having expended a metric ton of energy sprinting between stages and doing bicep curls with the beers all afternoon. But even in this brief glimpse, the potency of the band and the commanding delivery of vocalist Ezekiel Ox demand more than the passing mention they’ll receive here. In a few words: Mammal will not be missed next time around. That’s for sure.
It’s Jay Whalley and Lindsay McDougall… what were you expecting? Of course, there’s going to be stage banter and general silliness at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Of course, it’s going to be a little rough around the edges and occasionally veer into the dodgy. But Frenzal Rhomb in general, and Jay Whalley and Lindsay McDougall in particular, have forged such a deep connection with the Australian punk scene that they could have walked on stage carrying a bowl of spaghetti and still received a hero’s welcome.
The acoustic set features Frenzal Rhomb favourites ‘Where Drug Dealers Take Their Kids’, ‘Mum Changed the Locks’ and ‘Russell Crowe’s Band’, alongside a cover of ‘Daddy Drinks Because You Cry’ (The Self Righteous Brothers). No deeper meaning was suddenly unlocked by stripping the songs of distortion pedals and a madcap drummer, but that hardly matters. It was fun as hell, bolstered by a revolving cast of special guests who wander on and off stage throughout the set.
It’s 11:10 and everyone is way past it. One bloke at the back of the Main Room is standing with his chin on his chest, tapping his foot and looking like he’s trying to see out through the top of his own head, when DZ Deathrays explode onto stage.
DZ Deathrays at this point in the day was like chaos evolving in slow motion. It didn’t start like this, but it gets there quickly. By the time ‘Demolition’ is done and the band unleash far too much pyrotechnics for this time of night onto some of the stickiest floors in a 50km radius, the place dissolves into complete bedlam for anyone within 10 metres of the stage.
The crowd is thinning out slightly (it’s almost midnight, you animal) but those who remain are fully committed. Crowd surfers are launched and dropped in equal measure, while an ill-defined circle pit churns with the energy of a maelstrom.
What a day. I need a Neurofen.