Aussie Invasion featuring

The Vines, Jet, & The Living End

4/10/04 Wiltern Theatre - Los Angeles

What a great line up…all Aussie, all rock, mostly great. First of all, before I start, I’d like to give a huge shout out to the uber awesome Christine @ KROQ for hooking up the tickets for this the 2^nd of 2 sold out nights at the lovely, green Wiltern.

When I arrived at the venue the punktastic The Living End were ripping it up onstage.

These boys have been doing the rounds for some years now, but it really doesn’t show as they sound fresh, urgent, and vibrant. They sounded like a turbocharged cross between the Rev Horton Heat and Green Day, but without Billie Joe’s epileptic shakes shtick.

In “Prisoner of Society” and the made-for-rock-radio instant classic new single “Who’s Gonna Save Us” the band displayed their knack for crafting songs that could well be with you forever. Add to that some completely awesome black checkered double bass acrobatics and it adds up to a great show. A little Stray Cats in parts maybe, but all punk definitely. And when it was over, they left a portion of the packed Wiltern gasping for breath.

So, just who is the Wiltern packed to see? Why JET of course! How hugely successful has this dirty lil rock’n’roll outfit become whilst touring their bellbottomed denim assess off? I saw them a while ago at a packed little club called Spaceland near my house, and man how they’ve grown! Of course, a big measure of that success has come from the commercial for everyone’s fave little box of tricks, the Ipod, but the cool thing is JET know this and they are milking it.

So, midway through the set when vocalist Nic Cester brings a tambourine onstage everyone knows what time it is. Then bassist Mark revs up the crowd even more by strumming a tease me slowly one bit at a time intro before breaking into that rumbling juggernaut that is a direct Iggy rip off. But we all forget that fact, as pretty much the whole room breaks into a silhouette dance of its own. The greatest thing about the band though is that they own a whole arsenal of songs at least as good as “Are You Gonna blah de blah”. ”Cold Hard Bitch” rocks, “Rollover DJ” rolls, and even the slower acoustic led songs sounded majestic tonight. It’s especially apparent during these tunes that the band has more than a passing resemblance to Oasis, and that Nic has picked up more than a few Liamisms.

The band’s sound tonight is huge, and the lights are strobetastic. I look around and see some real young kids and I come to realize this could be their first rock show—not counting Britney’s miming mess maybe—and boy, what a way to lose your rock virginity. Just phenomenal…may the band get better and bigger. I hope they are writing some new stuff though because soon the stadiums will be starting to beckon.

So how can Craig Nicholls and his Vines top that? Let’s be honest, they didn’t and lets be frank, they never really had much chance. It would be unfair to say there was a mass exodus when JET left the stage, but it is fair to say that by the time The Vines hit the stage there was a visible shift in numbers.

OK, let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Nicholls is not the second coming of Kurt. He may think he is, but he ain’t. For one thing, he needs a second guitarist with him to create a Nirvana like wall of noise. But, the fact is Kurt wrote this book and Craig merely likes to look at the pictures. That said, I have been lucky enough to have seen the Vines close to their inception, just as the NME took them into their fickle hearts. That night in England they were an incendiary device more than living up to the massive hype bestowed upon them. It was a show that left members of the audience peeling their faces off of the sweat soaked walls. But tonight, well tonight was another tale. Things start promisingly enough as they opened with “Outtathaway,” from their Highly Evolved debut. The sound is kinda muddy though and a bit flat—no sparkle—and it quickly becomes apparent that the gremlins that like to hang out on the Vines bus have come out to play.

The crowd isn’t a third as receptive to the group as they were to Jet. Perhaps, due to a long night of rocking out maybe? The new single, “Ride,” from the group’s latest, Winning Days, sounds great. The lights are massive, yellow and bright, and the sound is like thunder and lightning rolled into one unstoppable force. Then things get weird. “Issues” are mentioned and Craig starts to throw his guitar off a lot mid-song and eventually gives up fighting the mutant instrument and lobs it to a lucky punter in the crowd. I couldn’t see if a tech followed after to retrieve it. I suspect they may have, but I hope they didn’t.

For a few songs guitarless Craig proceeds to lunge around the stage dragging his mike stand like a bad karaoke at a drunk wedding. Off key and mainly unintelligible, it’s messy. He’s losing the crowd. People exit - a lot of people. Patience is a virtue though, because when they finally hit their stride on “Get Free” the effect is bombastic. The enormous riff roaring like fifty V8’s going at full tilt. It’s huge. Craig is screaming and spitting the lyrics like he’s on fire and all is well in the world. Then inconsistency takes a turn at the wheel again. We hear Craig mumble the words Miss Jackson and cheer, but we don’t hear the song until later on. And by the end of the night all we can do is “Fuck the World” and after a half-assed smash up of the stage we file out deaf, confused, and a little bewildered. -Glen