Wolfmother – Powerstation June 9, 2017

Australian hard rock band Wolfmother rocked the Powerstation last night.  An auspicious date, coinciding with the full moon.

The project of Andrew Stockdale as frontman singer and songwriter of the outfit since its inception in 2000, the trio is comprised of a solid rhythm section of Chris Ross and Ian Peres.  Although Stockdale is the only remaining original member, these guys know how to lay down a rock-solid beat over which the front man can wail his histrionic vocals, usually unintelligible but nevertheless impressive in their primality.  The Darkness and Led Zepellin are obvious comparisons due to the vocal style of the former and the guitar sound of the latter.

Touring on the back of recent release Victorious, there are no major departures from previous style here so it is a crowdpleaser for the existing fan base but was perhaps a little lacking in nuance and variation for this punter – in other words the first few songs were impressive but the songs all start to sound the same after half a dozen.  Perhaps too derivative of Led Zeppelin and other bands from the 70s golden era of hard rock – I love watching Led Zeppelin on film from their heyday but have we not moved on 40 years since then? Should there not be progression and development in music?  There are obviously many contemporary bands that ride the retro/vintage/classic bandwagon as an excuse to lazily pump out the same stuff for tour after tour, I will leave it up to you to decide if they fit in that category.

In their defense the songs had buckets of drive and rhythm – the drums and bass were taut and powerful – but simply lacked any catchy melodic hooks, or indeed inventiveness of any type.  There was no crowd interaction or even a how are you – connecting with an audience is a cliché but a necessary one in intimate rock gigs in my opinion to maximise the power of the show.

That said, Stockdale has been doing this for almost two decades and undoubtedly and rightly would be proud of what he achieved within the existing paradigm without adding anything groundbreakingly novel.

For example the Stereophonics are classed as hard rock but I leave their shows with tunes caught in my head whistling them all the way home. Not so tonight.

So nothing to convert new fans that haven’t heard them but likewise not a poor performance and I am sure some died in the wool fans will have had a great concert experience.

Stephen Allely

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