Martedì 5 Mag 2009, 20:56

Tue 5 May – Mammal, Electric Mary

Well. It was shaping up to be an interesting gig, with Mammal deciding to book Collingwood's venerated Tote Hotel for their Fitzroy Legal Service benefit show - and, to boot, this was the 10th time I would see a Mammal live show. I was wondering exactly what they'd do to possibly make it even better than the other nine - and I got the answer in the form of an e-mail going out to their list in the early stages of this week, promising that they would deliver a few old favourites that hadn't been played live in some time, and even a few new tricks! Hmm…

At around 5:30-6:00 of last night, I was getting ready to leave for the Tote when by chance, I was browsing the Mammal forum and WOAH! Due to a "liquour licensing issue" (Zeke was later heard to complain to anyone listening that it was because of the Musicians Against Police Violence connection, good on him), the Tote would no longer be the venue and instead, we'd all be cramming into Yah Yah's on Smith St. So… a very small venue, a promise of an interesting setlist… all this was making my 10th Mammal show look awesome.

And so it was. Electric Mary had the opening honours - the Mammal boys have made it pretty clear that they're big fans of these Melbourne old-school sounding rockers, and with good reason. If you can get past the fact that sonically, they're about 20-30 years too late, Electric Mary are just a whole heap of good-time rocking fun. They played for about 40 minutes, with a very extended jam at one point which was rather awesome.

And then we had Melbourne's finest, Mammal. The band headed onstage around 10:00, blasting out The Majority to get the crowd amped up. Following this, Zeke promised "a surprise", and after the traditional early rendition of The Aural Underground, he revealed exactly what this surprise was - the setlist for the night would be determined by audience members pulling the songs out of a hat! And so it was that the third song of the night was to be, for the first time in god-knows-how long, Dionysian, which I know pleased a certain forum member! This was a great way to bring spontaneity and excitement back to the Mammal show, and ensured we did indeed get to see and hear some tunes that some of us new fans hadn't ever seen live before. The typical Mammal energy was very much present and accounted for, with Zeke dancing on a table for a few songs while the rest of the band played away onstage - meanwhile, during Maker the band invited Irwin Thomas from Electric Mary onstage to take Pete Williamson's guitar and do an awesome solo. Several times Zeke reminded us why we were all in attendance; upon noticing that the crowd had generated so much heat that the windows had fogged, he bounded over and scrawled "WE ♥ FLS" (Fitzroy Legal Service). Finally, with Zeke posing that age old question, "WHAT DO WE DO WITH PIÑATAS?!" and answering it in the form of song, Mammal departed the stage after a marathon hour and fifteen minute set - their longest to date, I do believe. Zeke stood at the door to greet everyone on their way out - once again, a firm reminder that Mammal are truly are a people's band.

And kudos to Yah Yah's for stepping in at the last minute and agreeing to hold this truly epic event!

SETLIST:
The Majority
The Aural Underground
Dionysian
Push and Shove
Maker
Hollywood Shrine
Clear Enough?
Groove Junkie
Mr Devil
Slaves
Inciting
Two Soles
Nagasaki in Flames (picked out of the hat by yours truly, which I was most delighted with, being probably my favourite Mammal track ever.)
Hell Yeah
The Tempo and the Groove (a newie, not yet released.)
Think
Smash the Piñata

Check SeanceMascara's page in the coming days for a recording of this show :)