Review: Streetlight Manifesto/The Gun Runners/Chris Duke & the Royals, The Zoo, April 1 2011

Ska fans in Brisbane don't often get a chance to see their favourite music genre, so when a night like last night comes around, all the chequered and brightly coloured clothing you can hope for gets together. When it happens in the Zoo and it's an acclaimed international ska band, you know it's going to be hot, sweaty and full of skanking.

It was.

When I climbed the stairs, Sydney band Chris Duke & The Royals were taking the stage. The best way to describe them would be to call them "Australia's Less Than Jake. With a cute girl on trumpet."

They had a very fun and upbeat skapunk sound that was just like the mighty Less Than Jake. They even did silly covers, much like Less Than Jake have been doing lately, with an awesome version of the Lion King's I Just Can't Wait To Be King. And the crowd loved it. Even though it was early in the night and no one really knew the band well, there was a large crowd of people skanking it up in front of the stage.

And let's not forget, they had a very cute band member. Who could blow a mean trumpet.

As the next band started setting up, I was a little confused. They looked like a bunch of hardcore dudes. They were wearing hardcore bands' merch. They were soundchecking metal riffs. But when they started, it was just good punk (with some hardcore tendencies). And within seconds they were really getting into it.


Punk jumps were most definitely the flavour of the evening for the Gun Runners.


And karate.


There were a lot of shouted and gang vocals.





One of the guitarists also looked like Jason "Dizzy" Gillespie.


All in all though, they were a great punk band. The crowd, despite being there for ska, really enjoyed this fast punk as well. There was a lot of moshing and even a circle pit to their self-proclaimed "circle pit" song. The Gun Runners' first Brisbane show ever showed how good this punk band is. Definitely one of my favourite Australian bands now just after one night.

An absolute buttload of microphones were then set up on stage, at all different heights. This obviously meant that Streetlight Manifesto, with their massive brass section, were hitting the stage. If you've never seen Streetlight before, you're missing out. The band consists of 4 brass musicians, an excellent guitarist/vocalist, an absolutely talented bass player and a crazy drummer. All up, they are amazing musicians putting together long and epical ska songs.

The band opened up with Mephisto's Cafe and then played over an hour of songs mainly from two albums: Everything Goes Numb and Somewhere in the Between. The highlight for me was their mix of Point/Counterpoint and Keasbey Nights.


The beauty of Streetlight Manifesto is the layering of the songs. All but the drummer sing, generally at different points in the songs providing depth to the vocals, as well as multiple vocal tracks. All of the brass section very rarely play together, rather they play separate melodies that add up to the sum total of awesome.

And they have as much fun playing as the crowd has singing along. And when it comes to sing alongs, not many bands do it better than Streetlight Manifesto. Every few minutes the crowd would get together, punch their hands in their air and yell out a lyric.







After wrapping it up, to the boos of the very full Zoo crowd, they came back for a two-song encore. The first song was their only song from their new album, 99 Songs of the Revolution Volume 1. The album is a cover album, and they played NOFX's Linoleum. I'm starting to lose count of the number of bands I've seen cover this song live now, but at least they made it their own, making it a very ska number. After this, they wrapped up their 80 minute set with the song Somewhere in the Between. The band then stuck around at the end shaking hands and just being friendly.

Also, the crazy saxophonist posed for every camera that was pointed at him.


Streetlight Manifesto are one of those must-see live bands. They put on an incredible show and it's impossible not to have fun. Their last tour a few years ago saw them play to a fairly empty Tempo Bar (Bar 388 was it's name then). It's good to see them pull a much larger crowd now, without losing any of that musical magic.