THE LOVE JUNKIES @ The Black Bear Lodge 26/05/2016

As part of The Love Junkie’s (a now four piece garage/alt rock group from Perth) tour around Australia for their ‘NOBODY’ single tour they played a show in Brisbane at The Black Bear Lodge last Thursday night. The support acts were DELUSO (a punk rock three piece from Brisbane) and WALKEN (another punk rock group consisting of three Brisbane guys). This was an excellent combination of grunge/punk/garage rock bands sure to leave the crowd with sore necks the next day.
As we walked in through the big door tucked away in the valley, we headed up the stairs excited to see The Love Junkies take the stage, being from Perth myself and knowing the music scene quite well, I had high expectations for the band. Regardless of the crowd size, they didn’t disappoint.

It was a bit of a shame they were booked in on a Thursday night in such a small venue, because the place felt almost empty right up until the last minute when The Love Junkies jumped up on stage. Within a matter of minutes the place surprisingly filled out for the Perth boys, and it started to get exciting. They came out roaring and everyone in the crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves and the venue transformed into a lively atmosphere. During their second song, Lewis Walsh the drummer had a mishap as his crash cymbal came off and landed in his lap, which he dealt with really well whilst still doing what he could to keep the flow going until the bassist came over and put it back on the stand for him when he had a spare moment, it was quite impressive! Unfortunately this wasn’t the only technical difficulty the band encountered. Towards the end of their set, Mitch Mcdonalds (guitar and lead vocalist) pedal board started not responding even after a quick guitar swap. This ended up with him slinging his guitar on the floor of the stage and strumming it with his feet whilst grabbing the microphone off the stand and belting out the lyrics with extra force as a result of frustration. This to me was quite entertaining and the crowd seemed more than satisfied with his efforts and whistled and applauded the band for their dedication to putting on the best show they could despite the technical circumstances.  

Some of the hit songs such as “Maybelene” and “Oxymoron” and their recently released track “I had a party once” were all really well received coupled with McDonald’s grungy vocals and powerful fuzzed out guitar riffs with thumping bass and aggressive drumming. The whole crowd who were all keen listeners were definitely left satisfied and still hungry for more. In no way was the small-ish crowd a reflection of they’re music.  In my opinion these boys deserve a stadium full of people and I can’t wait to hear their yet to be released album due later this year!
 
Reviewer – Tadhg Platt