The New Christs
The On and Ons
Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW
Friday, 6 June 2025
It’s fitting, in many ways, that the New Christs assaulted the beaches of Marrickville in Sydney’s Inner-Western Delta tonight on the 81st anniversary of D-Day. Your correspondent on the frontline can report that no ammunition was spared in a fiery, two-set bracket show that was their second-last before an August tour of the UK and Europe.
The New Christs pulled a full-house on a cold Sydney Friday night and put on an intense performance that peeled the Copperart panels from the beloved Bowlo’s ceiling.
Brent and Rob.
Now, it might be romantic to think of a successful gig by one of your all-time favourite bands as another battle won in The War Against the Jive and all that palaver. Certain band members would be over the militaristic overtones. But it is a struggle for many bands to be heard in a world seemingly content with lowest common musical dominators (pun intended).
It's a constant truism that Most People Don't Know What They Like And Like What They Know. The other salient point is that even those great, great grandaddies The Stones know that there’s another irrefutable truth in rock and roll: Time Waits for No-One.
(The next line of which is: “And it won’t wait for me” but none of us needs to be reminded of their own mortality, right?)
Real Rock and Roll is fighting a battle on many fronts - music’s rampant commodification and too many entertainment options among them - but it’s really losing against its biggest enemy: Father Time.
Every week, another rock act announces via a clickbait online article they’re delaying or cutting back their latest tour, calling it a day after decades, or firing, re-hiring and then re-sacking their drummer. Bob Dylan’s Never-Ending Tour will need to change its name soon or be in breach of consumer law.
Sadly, the less fortunate musicians don’t get to make an announcement of any sort and just drop off the twig. The few newspapers that still exist don’t have regular obituary sections - and that’s probably a good thing because they’d take up most of each edition.
Just don’t bug me with another Keith Richards meme. He won’t die, he’ll enter a state of suspended animation instead, but the jokes are as old as Willie Nelson.
The inevitability of all of the above was the topic of a conversation at Marrickville Bowlo on Friday night. Big John Williams - the Antony Green of live rock and roll because it’s not a gig until he calls it by being present - reckons there’s a 10-year window left. Tops. It’s hard to argue with John's theory that you have to savour every great gig moment and make the most of what’s left. Which was what the people gathered for Friday night’s gig were doing, kicking off with The On and Ons.
Clyde Bramley and Glenn Morris with The On and Ons.
John Hoey and Clyde Bramley with The On and Ons.
Real power-pop with three-part harmonies and guitars isn’t flavour of the month, the year or even the decade. Nevertheless, the line that’s been ventilated here many times bears repeating: It doesn’t come any better than The On and Ons, a Sydney band that’s in the final throes of recording Album Number Six (!).
You’ll attest if you were there on Friday night that The On and Ons are at the height of their powers.
Keyboardist John Hoey (coincidentally, and along with bassist Clyde Bramley, a member of the first, studio line-up of the New Christs) is laying fresh melodic variations over the songs. Vocalist and songwriter Glenb Morris is enjoying the extra freedom he’s allowed to add extra splashes of lead guitar. The new songs that have found their way into the set are some of his best yet.
And if unstoppable Brian Morris isn’t the only drummer in Sydney to have undergone two hip replacements and still be its best exponents of feel while chiming in with immaculate vocal harmonies, I’ll sit on a carrot and change my name to the Eveready Bunny. With whom Brian shares a work ethic.
The On and Ons set was 45 minutes well spent and the only downside is that more people don’t know it. There were plenty on hand tonight to spread the good word. If you didn’t retreat to the bar with “Lovin’ Soul” wedged in your ear like quick-set cement, get to one of Albo’s Medicare Urgent Care Clinics because you’re not very well.
Half of the New Christs guitar pairing, Dave Kettley.
Self-effacing Rob Younger has consistently decried the New Christs as being nowhere remotely near popular, but even he couldn’t avoid a look of contentment when he stepped onstage to see a room packed to the brim.
When it comes to the Newies being a well-kept secret at many stages of their long and storied run, he’s not wrong. That “Distemper” was a stiff at the time of release only to be lauded in a Rolling Stone listicle as one of the Top Australian Albums of All Time is one of life’s greatest mysteries. I’ve been at New Christs shows where the bar staff outnumbered the audience.
One was in the early ‘80s at a long-gone, upstairs Sydney shithole called Enfield Boulevard - named as such because it contained a load of broken dreams - where a seriously amped line-up, with Richard Jakimyszyn in for Kent Steedman, pinned a small collection of us to the venue’s back wall.
Rob Younger reckobns a hard-earned thirst deserves a glass of Bowlo wine.
An abiding memory is a shirtless Rob swinging from a ceiling fixture and swigging from a bottle of wine. Those hard-partying days are gone. Tonight, he’s clutching a single glass of the stuff, and it remains undrained until midway through the second bracket, to be replaced by bottled water.
“Waves Form” is the set opener, budging longtime icebreaker “We Have Landed” which is being saved for the second set. I’s also a super starter, Rob invoking lyrics about internal conflict and betrayal while Dave Kettley and Brent Williams add those withering, surf-flecked guitars.
Their partnership goes back to 2006 so it’s no wonder they operate at that psychic level where each knows what the other’s playing without thinking. They swap their parts effortlessly, light and shade with complementing tones.
The set’s a longtime fan’s wet dream with selections from “Gloria” and “Incantation” peppered with “Love’s Underground” (first time live since the “Distemper” line-up) and an excoriating “Born Out Of Time”. No “Like a Curse” but there’s a riotous “Heading South”. Inclusions from the “We Got This” album are thin on the ground with a killer “On Top of Me” a notable exception.
Rob’s penchant for loading the set with fast ones is balanced by bandmate concerns for the welfare of drummer Paul Larsen. He’s being worked hard tonight but the inclusion of pauses for breath like “Love’s Underground” at least gives him relative respite.
Jim Dickson lays down the bottom end.
Not that Pauly or engine room partner Jim Dickson complain. There’s enough swing in their pairing to inspire Bob Massie to make a comeback and they’re an object lesson for bands who think it’s only about the speed.
The band are their own harshest critics and it’s not a flawless trip by any stretch, but the Christs come home with a wet sail, hitting the line with the triple punch of “Fall of Rome”, the speedfreak attack of “Coming Apart” and the fittingly-positioned “Bonsoir A Vous”.
But that’s not all. We’re treated to an encore, a bare-knuckle “Life of Crime” that rivalled The Weirdos’ original.
The Stems once told us “"You Can't Turn the Clock Back", but with Real Rock Action is under challenge, I’m gonna wind up this sucker by falling back on the wartime analogy. Saving the bugger is going to require a guerilla action. You can call it “black ops”.
If you’re reading this, by all means sample some new or bypassed music via streaming but then, go to a bricks-and-mortar store, or Bandcamp which pays fairly, and plonk down some hard-earned on a release by a Rock and Roll Band.
If you were at this show (or even if you weren’t), drag a friend, neighbour or one of your own kids (or grandchildren) to a live show put on by live bands in a live space.
Those Dictators (the band not the politicians) won’t save Rock and Roll by themselves.
The final New Christs gig before their UK and Europe tour is with Tumbleweed at The Hamilton Station Hotel in Newcastle, NSW, on June 21. Tickets here.
