Adelaide’s Bad//Dreems are what the Go-Betweens might have sounded like had they grown up listening to AC/DC rather than Creedence Clearwater Revival. They have a melodic and lyrical core similar to the Go-Betweens, married to a pounding AC/DC rhythm. And it works.
Outside the Metro there is a biblical rainstorm, while inside it’s a bit biblical too. There are enough beards onstage and in the audience to make razor manufacturers fear for their future, and the music pummels in an Old Testament, take-no-prisoners way.
My raincoat bears a passing resemblance to the security team’s vests and people keep asking me where the toilets are. I’m dreading a fight breaking out, lest I’m expected to intervene. I needn’t have worried though. The moshpit, stage diving and crowd surfing (including by singer Ben Marwe) takes cares of any latent aggression. And if anyone does get injured, at least there’s a doctor in the house – guitarist Alex Cameron is a surgeon in his day job.
After opening with Blood Love and Johnny Irony, a one-two punch that showcases the AC/DC side of their craft, they play Hiding To Nothing from debut album Dogs At Bay, which has a killer pop melody that someone such as Taylor Swift or Katy Perry could very easily take to No1.
The venue is about three-quarters full, but that still seems to be more than Marwe had dared hope for. He says, appreciatively, “There’s a lot more of you than I was expecting.”
By My Side (not the INXS song of the same name, though matching its emotional intensity) has a chorus most bands would kill to have written and is one of the many songs accompanied by a mass singalong.
Sometimes the band does not borrow just a song title, but a riff. My Only Friend is a close cousin to Nirvana’s Something In The Way, while Mob Rules takes Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire and adds layers of guitar. But that’s OK. Half the audience wasn’t born when Kurt Cobain was still alive, and they may not know who Billy Joel is. Bad//Dreems’ love of the Replacements, Joy Division, the Cult and the Clash is also obvious, but they transcend those influences.
From their classic rock intro tape, to their classic indie (and MOR) influences, they seem not to be concerned with any current scene. Nor do they need to be when they leave most of their contemporaries for dust. It’s their waywardness mixed with raw talent and the fact that every word and every note seems to matter so much that makes Bad//Dreems special.
