You Am I

Tonight's set is a dream for long-time fans, a nightmare for Googling trainspotters and plain inaccessible for You Am I first-timers. Covers? Seven. Influences worn on-sleeve, these songs are recreated faithfully and without pretension. Davey Lane takes lead vocals for opener 'I Will Dare' by The Replacements, the first verse of which is inaudible as the sound tech is caught off-guard. There’s also 'Ice' by Magic Dirt, in tribute to Dean Turner; 'Open My Eyes' by 1960s psychedelic rock band Nazz; 'Teenage Lifestyle' by The Penetrators, to which drummer Rusty Hopkinson lends his voice; and first encore 'Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown', a Neil Young tune sung by Andy Kent. It’s followed by 'I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am' by Regurgitator, which Tim Rogers dedicated to a newly-engaged local couple. And 'River Deep, Mountain High', a cover of The Saints covering Ike and Tina Turner. All were impressive.

'Ribbons and Bows' from 2002's Deliverance makes an early appearance. There's 'Junk' and 'Guys, Girls, Guitars' from 1998's #4 Record. 'Forever And Easy' and the title track from their 1993 debut, Sound As Ever. Between every song, Rogers preens and peacocks. He delivers pointedly dramatic soliloquies; the band ignore him, having heard it all before. 'Cool Hand Luke' from their debut EP, Coprolalia, is a surprise. Andy Kent nails the rapid-fire bass solo in 'Applecross Wing Commander' from Hi-Fi Way. There’s 'Handwasher' and 'How Much Is Enough?' from the same epochal album, wherein Rogers allows a front-row fan to strum along to the latter's middle-eight, before quickly withdrawing once others claw at the fretboard. Those four bent notes in the song's coda are timeless, prompting middle-aged dads to dance shamelessly. It's wonderful. Only a couple from last year's Dilettantes, 'Frightfully Moderne' and 'Givin' Up And Getting Fat'. Nothing from Hourly, Daily. A trio of Convicts cuts end the set proper.

To close the encore, 'Cathy's Clown', one of the few moments where the band seem to play for us. Most of the time, they're facing us but playing to a mirror (see Rogers’ regular preening, Kent’s measured stoicism and Lane’s unwillingness to address the audience). Where a thousand other bands would suffer for taking such a tack, You Am I excel. It’s not that they disrespect our presence, they’re just acutely aware of their own natural potency.

Despite the unorthodox setlist that favours personal favourites over familiarity, they hit the target again and again across 100 minutes. The four linger on stage for a minute to soak in our adulation. They bow. Rogers and Lane catch each other in a headlock and make cheesy gestures. The mirror's shattered. It's 1.45am. We don't care. When You Am I decide to pull up stumps, stocks in Australian rock will plummet.

by Andrew McMillen