Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Quick summation: They rocked. They were a massive ball of fun. The New Guy was his own man; Frank Carter doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not. The band behind him is still three-quarters of the Sex Pistols - and monstrously good.

Statement of the obvious: The crowd was old. Sure, there was a sprinkling of curious young millennials who’d been browsing their parents’ record collections, but mostly it was codgers bordering on, or of, pensionable age.  I haven’t this many senior citizens in one place since Oatley RSL had a disability scooter rally on the concrete apron outside the entrance, where the old dears listen to piped music as the clock counts down to the poker machine room’s 10am opening.

_{Carolyn Fenech photo.}

Sex Pistols with Frank Carter
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide

First and most important: skip whatever preconceptions you may have.

JUST GO.

People will be talking about this tour for decades and believe me, you really don't want to be telling folks how this band were loads better at the 100 Club as they change your colostomy bag in your fucking retirement village.

The squeakers of "sacrilege"  have had their say on the interwebs, and now it's time for Frank Carter's name (and back catalogue) to be on everyone's minds.

The Sex Pistols - featuring Frank Carter 
Teenage Cancer Trust
Royal Albert Hall, London
24 March 2025 

In short, a fantastic, fun show. Frank Carter is an inspired choice as front man. He brings incredible energy and respect to the songs and, to my mind, vanquishes any concerns of the Sex Pistols being a "karaoke act" without John Lydon. 

I was almost reluctant to see the reformed Sex Pistols. I had seen Generation Sex last summer, with Billy Idol supported by Paul Cook and Steve Jones. That was close to karaoke or perhaps closer to cabaret, as Billy Idol himself looked like a wax figure from a Hammer Horror Film. That day Glenn Matlock had played on the same bill with Blondie. I thought that was as close as I would ever get to seeing the Sex Pistols perform. 

_{Bryan Grenberg photo.} 

The OSees
+ G2G
+ Exit Mould
The Metro Theatre, Sydney
February 28, 2025

During the 1990s, The Metro was THE venue in Sydney. I could list the life-changing gigs that I went to and it was chocka block full of top shelf bills every weekend. More than a thousand punters crammed in and with great sound. And great sight-lines.  Tonight, I am back again to see if the sold-out OSees can top their intense performance of almost two years ago.

In the '90s, playing a gig at The Metro was something to aspire to. Even I played gigs there back in the day, as an opening act. Damn, they treated you well, with a fridge full of beer and a dressing room…complete  with a photocopied A4 piece of paper with your band’s name on the door. It was welcoming.

It is still a top shelf room in a prime location. While the suburbs outside the city are abuzz with Friday night teens, roaming gangs and dance music kitsch and glitter, The Metro is mostly (sadly) like the last oasis of rock ‘n’ roll in the Sydney CBD.

_{Matt Allison photo}

Superchunk
+ Smudge
The Sydney Crowbar, Leichhardt
Friday, December 13, 2024

1991 has gone down in folklore as “The Year That Punk Broke” and in many ways it’s true. A wave of underground music swept across music channels - in particular in the USA.

It’s also that there was a surge in guitars being bought and we can attribute this mostly to Nirvana. Scratch under the surface, and a crop of new bands had been springing up like green shoots across America for years. Releasing records on labels like Matador, SST and SubPop, they’d been criss-crossing America in broken vans, living on pills, booze, junk food and small shows  

All the action was being documented in fanzines and the underground bible Alternative Press. For me, it was even cooler than the British wave of punk as it was more street-level and organic. Names like Afghan Wigs, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, Laughing Hyenas, Mudhoney, TAD, Pixies and Lemonheads were the staple diet in the period prior to Nirvana releasing “Nevermind”.

The Saints ’73-‘78
Kim Salmon and The Surrealists
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Friday 22 November, 2024

Words: THE BARMAN
Photos: MURRAY BENNETT

Polarising was the Word of the Night. You could have argued that there was no way Mark Arm would successfully replace the late Chris Bailey in a reconstituted version of the Saints and if you did, you probably didn’t go to the show anyway.

It’s a truth that Arm’s yowl is as far removed from the patented snarl of Bailey as Brisbane is from Seattle. If you didn’t take Arm at his word that he wasn’t trying to fill the original singer’s shoes, you were never going to dig this show. He clearly isn’t Bailey and didn’t try to be.