“Black Milk 35th Anniversary”
The Beasts
with guests Rob Younger, Hellen Rose, Richie Weed & John Schofield
+ The Johnnys
+ Richie Weed and The Strays
+ Unsound
The Factory Theatre, Marrickvile, NSW
Friday, December 12, 2025
Words & Pictures: THE BARMAN
When the definitive mainstream version of the history of Australian rock and roll finally is penned, the Beasts of Bourbon are unlikely to get their dues. History is written by the victors and its telling needs to be simplistic if it’s to have the desired effect of "moving units".
I once shopped a manuscript of a Radio Birdman member (no, not Chris) to a bunch of publishers to be told by one of the biggies that they saw no market for it because the band’s fans couldn’t read.
Despite dancing with a broad audience in the early ‘90s, the Beasts of Bourbon narrative is just too convoluted, edgy and unconventional to suit straight publishers. Not that this need be a deterrent to enlightened ones.
Kim Salmon...smoking.
The band's was yet to reach a mainstream audience at the time of the “Black Milk” album (1990) but it was an iomportant landmark. It was the record that gave the Beasts of Bourbon licence to do the fuck whatever they wanted, musically speaking, and the one we’re gathered in Sydney tonight to celebrate.
“Black Milk” sold only moderately compared to the album that followed, the breakthrough “Low Road”, but it opened up Europe for the band - and without that market, the Beasts of Bourbon might have withered on a choko vine in their own Surry Hills backyards.
Of course if you’re a Barfly you’ll know Beasts of Bourbon are no more after the passing of far too many members, and that their remnants have since morphed into The Beasts, the outfit that Tex Perkins likes to label “the world’s only Beasts of Bourbon cover band”.
The Beasts aren’t the same band but have enough of its DNA, and spirit, to be mentioned in the same breath. Tex, guitarist Kim Salmon and bassist Boris Sudjovic were, of course, there form the start. Charlie Owen became an intrinsic member. Drummer Evan Richards was understudy to the late James Baker on recent Beasts tours.
The “Black Milk” album received the anniversary treatment with a tribute night in Melbourne in September with The Beasts calling up an all-star line-up of guests and supports to make the evening special. It was logical to replicate that in Sydney, the band’s original home, but it had to wait until December which has been a crowded month.
Fate would have it that The Church’s show at the much larger Enmore Theatre just up the road is on the same night, and it’s the second time in a month that Steve Kilbey and friends have sold out that room. Nonetheless, the roll-up to The Factory Theatre tonight is respectable and comfortably proportioned for an older demographic that doesn't like being squeezed.
Richie Weed.
Like any good reviewer I miss openers The Unsound, a bunch of young blokes having a lash, but every early-bird punter run into has only good words for them. Richie Weed and The Strays (they’d be the Tumbleweed singer with Ben Nightingale, Matt Houston and Darren Ireland) deliver the goods with a set of Americana-inspired tunes that suit the frontman’s pipes to a tee.
At the risk of breaking a self-imposed rule about not reviewing bands I work with I’m gonna say “fuck that” and give main supports The Johnnys a wrap for a righteous set that warms up the crowd nicely.
Hoody from The Johnnys.
Slim from The Johnnys.
Onto tonight’s subject: “Black Milk” has always been an odd listen. Tex calls it “nutty”. It jumps around from one genre to another. Dirty swamp rockers rub shoulders with a torch song, a chicken scratch blues and a polka. Thanks to the Redeye label’s affiliation with a major label, it was recorded at Sydney’s then top-shelf studio, Electric Avenue.
Phil Punch’s production put the band in a different light, but memory has it that the average Triple M listener found themselves challenged. For all its switch-hitting, it remains an underrated record and showed a band with a growing command of light and shade.
The title track opens the set and it and the balance of the songs are delivered chronologically. The song’s sense of creeping menace is slightly at odds with the event’s celebratory nature, but then again the legacy of former members who passed too soon still hangs heavily in the air.
With Hellen Rose.
We all know what’s coming but the injection of guests puts a fresh edge into proceedings. Hellen Rose reprises her stellar role on the original recording of “Hope You Find Your Way to Heaven” and still brings an ethereal touch. Jon Schofield (Paul Kelly, The Grooveyard) adds accordion to “Blank Garcon”.
Charlie and Rob.
There’s a hometown cheer for Rob Younger whose vocal spot on “Execution Day” moves Charlie Owen to declare being back onstage together since their “Distemper” New Christs days an historic moment.
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So is the show. Evan Richards lays down the beat with a precision that breathes. Peering from under a head of hair that would do a Ramone proud, he’s driving the beat or easing in behind it with an apparent ease in the right places. Boris keeps the bass runs simple and warm, his throbbing tones blanketing the stage.
The guitars of Kim and Charlie spark and weave their way down well-worn paths. Nobody worries about the odd false start, here. Loose tightness rules. Some fireball soloing from both is the pay-off. Kim lobs up some blues harp. Like a Swiss Army knife, Charlie adds his own extra finesse, filling the piano parts of the late Louis Tillett on the croon-worthy “Blue Stranger”, which ends up as one of the most evocative moments of the night.
It’s a well-worn cliché to say Tex Perkins is one of Oz rock’s last rock stars but it’s also a truism. He’s a compelling and witty frontman with vocal chops that have only improved with age. One minute he’s fashioning a lyric sheet into a paper plane and launching it into the audience, next he’s focusing an on-stage fan on Kim Salmon to cool down a particularly hot solo.
An onstage gathering of the entire bill’s performers is expected and delivered – in line with the theme of a broad communion. "Rest In Peace", indeed. The inevitable encore pushes the night into overtime but clockwatching is for losers.
Tex might lament his lyrics of “Hard For You” being beyond the pale but if only if you take them literally. It and a searing “Saturated” are highlights.
Jon Schofield gets down with the members of Unsound.
Never made it to the Melbourne leg of “Black Milk” but ubiquitous gig goer John Williams did and reckons Sydney was bang on par. The post-show buzz among performers and punters is mutual.
The Beasts aren’t just a band, they’re an experience and a reminder of the power of pared-back, blues rock. They stride whatever stage they take with a rock swagger that’s all but extinct these days which makes every gig somethign to savour. The outfit that begat them, the Beasts of Bourbon, outgrew the concept of a fixed line-up years ago. As long as their spirit is alive, The Beasts should live on in some form.
Black Milk
Finger Lickin'
Cool Fire
Bad Revisited
Hope You Find Your Way to Heaven
Words From a Woman To Her Man
I'm So Happy I Could Cry
Blank Garcon
Blue Stranger
A Fate Much Worse Than Life
Let's Get Funky
I've Let You Down Again
You Let Me Down
Execution Day
El Beasto
Rest In Peace
Encore:
Saturated
Hard For You
Drop Out
I Don't Care About Nothing Anymore
The Low Road
