There are few pretenders to the throne left vacant by bands like Thin Lizzy and AC/DC. Rock Bands (and good ones at that) are hard to come by, and one band who have crept into that small list of the next potential big rock band is Wolfmother. They would want to be referred to as a 70’s hard rock band, and that may very well be their style of music, but whilst that was a huge genre back then, there are very few rock bands these days that make it big in a world dominated by pop culture and X-Factor. So when one of the pretenders comes to town, I always try give them the test that every band must pass – the live show test.
So I headed along to the Olympia last Wednesday night and situated myself in the pit so I could best enjoy the show front and centre. I only caught the end of the support band so I won’t pass any judgment on them, but they did seem to be quite decent. Wolfmother rolled onto stage about 15 minutes later to a rapturous welcome in a sold out Olympia.
The band rattled through songs at a pretty decent pace. For me, this was a Ronseal gig, the gig I expected was a rock gig, the gig they produced was a rock gig, but I just wasn’t feeling anything special was happening in front of me. We were served up some rocking riffs and solos that the albums would suggest but something was missing.
The front man, (Andrew Stockdale) seemed off, and he was all over the place in certain songs, with the rhythm being completely lost and bum notes galore. I felt bad for the drummer as he struggled to try hold the whole thing together while at times the rest of the band were waiting for Stockdale to come back to the song.
There was little crowd interaction, and the band belted through their hits in record time with the occasional gesture towards the crowd to clap. On stage, the most active was the bassist and keyboardist Ian Peres, who would at times jump on top of his keyboard with a leap and continue playing whilst on the keyboard.
The band rounded up the show with a two song encore closing out with “The Joker and the Thief”, which obviously was a very popular song. I spoke to a few people after the gig and the consensus was pretty similar all round. I got general agreement on Stockdale being off his game, and that the bass was too high which compromised the sound a bit. They flew through their songs like a hurricane and left out songs that people were saying they were disappointed not to hear, though to be fair, this happens at a lot of gigs. The gig was over by 10 past 10 which people felt was a very short set from them.
All in all, I think it’s fair to say that this gig had the potential to be gig of the year (or a contender there-in), and ended up being the gig of the week. I had expected more from Wolfmother, and I honestly would have tipped the contender to the rock throne more in favor of Airborne or The Answer when live shows are taken into consideration.
Overall it was a decent gig but could have been so much more. I genuinely hope the fans out there really enjoyed the gig, but I think largely there may be have been a slight disappointment heading home that Wednesday night. I guess all things considered, the short set meant that we had time for a pint or two before last bus.
Review by Aidan Cuffe
Edited by Dierdre Lennon
Thumbnail by Dave Barry
Published on Goldenplec.com
