Glam Slam 4
The Cavern Club, Adelaide
02 September 2011

By Shayne Bishop

On paper, Glam Slam 4 was a winner. Headlined by Melbourne’s Fastrack and Adelaide’s own Generation Swine, with two of Adelaide’s young up and comers as openers, I had high hopes. Performance wise I wasn’t disappointed, but the lack of a crowd was a blemish on an otherwise great night.

Opening band Foxx are very young, and this is most evident in singer Sam Szabo, who seems to lack the confidence necessary to be the front man of any band, let alone a band whose roots are in glam metal. Musically the band was extremely tight, particularly the drummer. They ran through their half hour set, with the best moment being a cover of Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me”.

Up next was Rebel Circus, another young band from Adelaide. To be completely honest, this was the first time I had ever heard of Rebel Circus. They were good, but again, very green, and will only benefit from playing gigs like this, and boosting their confidence as they go. This is not to say that I didn’t like the band.

Next up was Generation Swine. These boys have the catchy original tunes, and the confidence to back it up. The band have gigged heavily all over Adelaide, and recently toured the east coast of Australia on the back of their Dirty Lovin’ EP. All of the tracks from the EP were on show here, as well as a few from their first. Highlights for me personally were the songs that I was most familiar with. “Dirty Lovin’” “10-70” and “Show Me Tonight”. The songs are glam anthems in the vein of early Motley Crue. With chant along choruses for easy crowd interaction and the Axl Rose styled movements of singer Matty D’Amore, this band will go places.

The final band of the night was Fastrack. Funnily enough, both Fastrack and I live in Melbourne, and singer Brad and I run into each other frequently, but I was yet to see the band live. I am a massive fan of their EP, and was looking forward to seeing them live. As I have said before, the crowd was almost non-existent, and those that were there were more of the arms crossed head nodders than anything, but this didn’t dampen Fastrack’s spirits at all. All of the tracks were there, “Generation Riot”, single “Steal the Show”, “Gonna Get You”, “Life or Death” and “What If” plus an absolutely fantastic rendition of The Living Ends “Prisoner of Society”. These guys are born to play rock n roll. They look the part, they act the part, and they can write a fantastic anthem. Front man Brad Marr even took to climbing onto the bar at one stage, walking the entire length of the bar, while stomping his foot all the while. It took a 9 hour drive for me to finally see Fastrack, but it was well worth it.

Putting the laid back crowd aside, Glam Slam 4 was great. The four bands went really well together, and the venue was fantastic. Generation Swine were perfect, but the real heroes of the night were Fastrack.