22 October 2023 – The Princess Theatre, Brisbane – words by Joe Harbour – pictures by Bec Harbour
Another Sunday night gig means another late night before returning to work.
But tonight I’m really hanging out for this gig.
Tonight, WHALEHOUSE and Otoboke Beaver play The Princess Theatre in Brisbane and it’s SOLD OUT!!!
Everyone already there is fired up for this gig, and it’s getting noisy. It’s filling up fast and the crowd is real good mix of people and it’s obvious we’re all there to have a blast and listen to some great music.
So WHALEHOUSE come on, and they are good. Really good actually, and I was loving the green suit with bugs all over it the singer was wearing then realised the other members have bugs on their outfits too (This would go with their ‘The Bug Song’ song).
Musically I was impressed, think noisy rock with cool lyrics that are meaningful. The crowd loved them and they let them know it!
So after interlude we had the Otoboke Beaver from Japan come onstage.
1, 2 whoa! is how I’ll start it off. So how do I describe this 4 piece out of Kyoto? Well, one is musically proficient ( seriously, watching Hirochan’s hand play notes was mesmerising on her new bass)but they are a punk band through and through. But if I could relate them to bands I like to listen to I’d go with nomeansno, minutemen mostly (from a technical point of view). But this is something else, though. There’s a pop aspect and proper hard core noise mixed with crazy. And they pull it off perfectly. Japan has some really cool music and it would be awesome to experience more of it!
So we got tracks like ‘Akimahenka’, ’I Won’t Dish Out Salads’, and crowd favourite ‘Yakitori’.
If you’re familiar with the latest album ‘Super Champon’ you would know ‘I Checked Your Cellphone’, ‘I Am Not Maternal’ and ‘Pardon’. Drummer Kahokiss is a machine and easily one of the best female drummers I’ve seen.
At one point vocalist Accorinrin got the crowd hushed (we were all quite excited and rowdy – I think in part to guitarist YoYoYoshie) and down to a complete silence then BLAM! the band hit us with more sonic energy and then once that song was done she hushed us all again. I noticed the crowd taking longer this time to quiet and seriously one signal from her the crowd just stopped, it was incredibly funny! And then yep, again, BLAST!!!! Another track was just dropped on us… it was so good!
At some point someone yelled “HOLY SHIT!!!!” And rightly so, it was a fun intense night of excellent punk music and easily one of the best gigs I’ve seen this year! The crowd was loud, the bands were loud it was one helluva night!
If you get chance to see them you will not be disappointed!
Thank you WHALEHOUSE and Arigato Otoboke Beaver!
