GASOLINE INC FAREWELL SHOW
With STILLFIRE
FLY BY NIGHT CLUB, FREMANTLE
21 January 2011

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The old blues tracks on the stereo faded down to allow the disgracefully talented STILLFIRE to take the Fly’s large stage, and with a riff and a high hat crash, they were away, playing some of the finest hard blues rock this side of Zeppelin.

Singer and guitarist Gabriel Lee is a born rock star, a hulking mountain of charisma and talent who permanently looks like he’s recently woken up, and possessing a voice like honey dripping through hot bitumen.

Lee heads off to Canada soon in support of good friend Jeff Martin of The Tea Party & The Armada fame, and it’s doubtless they will be as taken with his bluesey take on rock, throwing together a little AC/DC riffage, a little Stones swagger, and a whole lotta Zep into his sound – stardom awaits.

GASOLINE INC have built up quite a reputation around this town in the past eighteen months or so, and it’s no big surprise they are upping stumps and moving to Melbourne. This being their “thankyou and farewell” show to their hometown, they’ve promised to pull out all the stops.

They open with an instrumental showcasing keyboard player Mili Separovic before vocalist Gabriel O’Brien (Yep – two Gabs on lead vocals tonight!) runs onstage for their signature song ‘Superstar’ and as yet unreleased live favourite ‘Shedding my Skin’, followed by a clutch of new tunes which are showing abundant promise.

As they ran through their entire repertoire of songs we’ve grown to love this past year and new tunes being road tested for their next release, we were treated to a quite stunning ‘unplugged’ style rendition of ‘Butterfly’ from their first EP, featuring only acoustic guitar, minimal percussion and acapella vocals.

This may have been the longest set the band have performed to date, and the crowd grew a little restless two thirds through as the unfamiliarity of all the new songs was made obvious. It’s not that these aren’t good songs - but the band has officially released only six tracks, so to play nothing but originals – including 7 brand new songs – was a minor mis-step, where perhaps a couple of covers or their well-known Rolling Stones medley may have upped the energy quotient more favourably.

That said, Gasoline Inc’s energy, commitment, musicianship and charisma never faltered, even when founder member Andro Mestrovic dropped the bombshell that despite having packed his life up and bought the tickets, he had decided not to go through with the move to Melbourne with his band. It takes a brave & strong man to put his family before his dreams – we look forward to hearing your next band, mate.

Bombshells aside, a firecracker encore of ‘The Dirty Three’, ‘Tonight Is the Night’ and another great new song ‘Blessed’ – written just for tonight – wrapped things up emotionally. They will be missed – our loss is definitely going to be Melbourne’s gain.

Words by Shane Pinnegar & Trulie Jackson

Photos by Mark Diggins

Setlist: Gasoline Inc

Forgotten rhyme
Superstar
Shedding my skin
Crazy
Aurora
Nicotine and love
Open
Dynamite
Butterfly (acoustic)
Turn up my radio
Another candle burns
Music is my religion
I'll be gone
The broken ballet

The dirty three
Tonight is the night
Blessed