GBH
With PILLAR OF HOPE
THE ROSEMOUNT, PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Sunday October 17, 2010

By Shane Rockpit

Mark Rockpit

Thank goodness for small promoters like Two Fast Four Love Music. Without them bringing bands like punk legends GBH to Perth we might see a return to the dark days of yore when months went by between international tours of note. And unless a few more people make the effort to get out to these tours, we still might.

PILLAR OF HOPE toured the country during their five years together before disbanding a few years hence, and tonight was a reformation of sorts – a testing of the waters, as it were.

Sporting a very old school punk style, they tore through a set chock full of stroppy and feisty anthems and seemed to have a lot of fun doing so, boasting some punk/metal riffing with as much in common with Motorhead as with The Clash.

Fine and entertaining, if a little undistinguished, Pillar Of Hope may have made more of an impact if they’d assaulted the set list Ramones style rather than larked about as if it was a rehearsal!

GBH come out fighting with some blistering punk, complete with a rowdy and dangerous mosh pit, and all the spit flecked anger you’d expect from these Godfathers of the scene.

Shane Rockpit

Twenty years ago your faithful Rockpit scribes might have been beaten up for being hair with – gasp – long hair, but thankfully GBH have seen the melding of the tribes over the two decades of their existence, and the crowd tonight is a real mix of all sorts.

Surprisingly, this is the band’s first ever Australian tour and they go all out to impress with a setlist spanning their entire career, right up to this year’s excellent new “Perfume & Piss” album.

Shane Rockpit

Whether introducing the band “cos we’re polite English boys”, chatting with the rockers down the front, or spitting out the lyrics to classics such as ‘Time Bomb’ and ‘Drug Party 526’ (dedicated to “Mister X, the man who cannot be named”) and ‘Kids Get Down’ from the latest album, original singer Colin Abrahill never falters for a moment.

This is an aggressive and insistent set of street punk – ‘Crush em’, ‘I Am The Hunted’, ‘Sick Boy’ all fly by, and after twenty years the band are as tight as hell and eager to share their Brummy sense of humour.

Shane Rockpit

‘Room With A View’ is dedicated to “all the lovely ladies down front”, and their versions of The Stooges ‘I Feel Alright’ and The Clash’s ‘White Riot’ were stunning and every bit as good as any other versions of these songs we’ve heard.

With ears ringing the sweaty faithful exit, having seen a great gig from a truly legendary band, wishing thanks again to Two Fast Four Love for bringing them over.