Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Thursday September 20, 2018 :
Waiting down in the photo pit I’ve never seen so many photographers at the Enmore Theatre before, the security guard leans over to me and yells, “the crowd is wild tonight so if they start coming over the barrier we are going to get you out of here as safely as possible”, with the seriousness of as if we were in a hostage situation. The crowd was wild but it was an all ages punk crowd so most of it seemed like teenagers jumping out their inner rage.
Canadian punk exports PUP came out to a remix that combined ‘1000 Miles’ by Vanessa Carlton with AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’, this would remain unaddressed, why would they do this. Launching into ‘My Life Is Over’ and ‘I Couldn’t Be Happier’, it is clear that the singer Stefan Babcock is still recovering from a previous vocal injury but this is pop punk at it’s finest and no one is complaining.
Babcock doesn’t hold back either taunting the crowd when they beg for their favourite tracks and then launching into the punters to crowd surf. Obvious favourite ‘If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You’ lights up the crowd into a circle pit of sweat and flailing arms before track ‘DVP’ finishes up the set. Everyone around me was covered in sweat and I can see why PUP have a mass cult following.
I’m not going to lie I can’t believe that DZ Deathrays have been around for 10 years. The boys play a roaring set with very few dips in energy, between both them and the crowd. There is never a moment throughout the night where someone wasn’t crowd surfing, weren’t their arms sore, youths sure are wild.
They smashed through a lot of tracks and even I wasn’t immune to raising my hands in the air like I just didn’t care to epic tracks like ‘Gina Works At Hearts’ and ‘Like People’. They are definitely one of those bands you know you are going to be exhausted and in desperate need of a shower after seeing.
They come back out for the encore with ‘Shred for The Summer’, before finishing the night with openers The Gooch Palms with a cover of the B-52’s ‘Love Shack’, it was an absolute banger.
Reviewer and Photographer : Amy Heycock
DZ DEATHRAYS
[nggallery id = 1049]
PUP
[nggallery id = 1050]