GenQ - For the not so straight individual

I rolled up to The Veronicas concert at Festival Hall in Melbourne last Thursday night expecting to indulge my inner teenybopper, and channel my adolescent self circa 1998 during my Spice Girls obsession. But to my surprise and complete delight, those tiny twins from Bris Vegas, Lisa and Jess, put on one hell of an impressive rock show, not pulling any punches for the PG portion of the crowd– dropping the f-bomb and flashing some ass and a little bra.

Despite the legendarily uncomfortable venue the fans turned out en masse, a diverse crowd of mini-skirt wearing teenyboppers and their mums, black-clad emo’s and a surprising amount of guys. There were cardboard signs and glow sticks a plenty, and Nathan from Video Hits MCed the night, working the crowd into a frenzy by handing out Veronicas show bags and movie vouchers. As usual the hall was horribly humid, sticky and generally uninhabitable, which some of the under 14’s couldn’t cope with, security guards plucking them out from the stifling heat of the crowd or pouring water straight into people’s open mouth’s.

First to hit the stage were Melbourne band Capeside, (you can check them out here), who won the coveted opening spot in the Hook Me Up competition that the girls ran on their myspace site, inviting a band from each state to open for them. They performed five songs and managed to get the crowd going, especially the antics of lead singer Simo, who did some variation of the funky chicken dance and threw in a couple of shimmies. The band was pretty tight and their pop punk songs were impressive.

Next up was so-called heartthrob Dean Geyer, conveniently dating Veronica Lisa, who did a five song set with his band. His vocals were strong and he looked hot in some not-too-skinny skinny jeans and a t-shirt and interacted well with the crowd, but it was a little lackluster… nothing was really sparking. I blame the band – the horrible white pants wearing bass player was the most interesting one up there… and not in a good way.

But everyone was waiting for The Veronicas, and they finally took to the stage just after 8.30pm, Jess in black leggings and a t-shirt and Lisa in a ruffled black and red mini-skirt and top. The anticipatory cheering and screaming was drowned out by the intro to their new single ‘Untouched’, and as the beat kicked in and the lights went up a material screen fell, revealing the girls, their band and a flaming pink Veronicas logo. From there they pretty much alternated songs from their new album ‘Hook Me Up’ with tracks from their debut ‘The Secret Life Of…’, throwing in a couple of B-sides for the true fans. They turned ‘Secret’ into an awesomely thrashing punk song and then rocked it out 80s style on ‘This Is How It Feels’. Some of the verse of ‘Popular’ got drowned out but the grinding chorus sounded great with the guitars, and some bimbo-ed up dancers took to the stage.

About halfway through they brought a couple of stools on stage and took it down a notch, performing ‘In Another Life’, the ballad very personal to Jess, (she cries on the album recording), and dragging two lucky fans on stage and performing the love song ‘Speechless’ to them. They also played an acoustic version of a new song they’d written with the band called ‘Don’t Say Goodbye’.

The band continued to rock it out while the girls ran off stage for a quick outfit change (returning in much the same thing – black and red mini-skirt and top) and honorable mentions must be given to those boys, especially drummer Vik, or as I took to calling him, “fucking animal�. He pounded those drums and looked super sexy doing it, twirling the sticks in between beats, arms going every which way. They have been touring together for years and it shows – the boys were flawless. But the girls got in on the act as well, Jess playing the guitar about half the time and Lisa on the keyboard a couple of times.

The girls perform together like they’ve been doing it their whole lives… (ba boom ching). They have fun and play around and are completely natural and spontaneous with the crowd as well. Their voices were almost consistently pitch perfect, and their harmonies were just as powerful as the solos. Jess, clearly more rock and roll than Lisa, took the opportunity to reveal to her mum in the crowd the tattoo she’d gotten the day before, and we then joined her in an apology to her mum who hates her getting tattoos, before they launched into a bitchin’ version of ‘Mother Mother’, screaming the shit out of it.

They played all their biggest hits and finished the set with ‘Hook Me Up’ (dancers from ‘Popular’ making a reappearance), before running back for an encore, the lights going up around 10pm. We were told about ten times that we were the best crowd they’ve had this tour, and I know they all say it and we’ve all heard it a million times before but I’m inclined to believe it’s true this time. The crowd was awesome… and so were The Veronicas.