Bad//Dreems @ Miami Shark Bar, Gold Coast - 17/10/2015

​With unemployment rates high, dissatisfaction with the Aus government climbing, and a Queensland youth culture that is genuinely pissed off, there has never been a better time for Bad//Dreems to exist.

The Shark Bar, a Gold Coast institution and famous for being a bit of a dive bar, was the ideal setting for the ‘screw it all’ Adelaide rockers. Within the first 2 songs beer was flying, spraying the band and the punters, guys were banging the roof whilst perched on the shoulders of their drunken mates, fans were screaming and stage diving – surfing from the front of the wasted moshpit to the tables at the back of the bar.

The thing is, Bad Dreems don’t only create this vibe in the coastal dive bars of East Coast Australia; they embody it. Their music is wild, unhinged, and liberating. Their dress style is modest and extremely inoffensive, but typically Australian all the same. They play footy. They skull beers. They shred genuine Ozzie rock. They make the audience feel ‘Australian’ – whatever that means.

As they played hit after hit from their latest release ‘Dogs At Bay’, Bad Dreems had the crowd in a state of euphoria – singing the lines as if they were etched into their skin from their birth in Australia. Despite the gear breaking down at the end of the first song of the set (which seemed so beautiful and pure in itself for some reason), Bad Dreems absolutely killed it at the Shark Bar. These guys are probably the only genuine dudes playing Aussie rock left – and damn they know how to.

​By David Simmons