Suicidal Tendencies, Wolfpack, The Lizards @ The Gov, Adelaide 26/3/2018

Sometimes you don’t need to go the mountain known as Download for Download will come to you. Last week it was the Limp Bizkit show, Sunday was Neck Deep while Monday was the turn of California legends Suicidal Tendencies bringing their own brand of ‘Church of Suicidal’.

Before the Americans came on though, we have Adelaide three-piece band The Lizards. Influences coming straight from the headliners themselves, they play fast punk music while throwing in a groovy head nodding instrumental into the mix for good measure. Their half hour set is a great introduction to what the rest of this show is going to be.

Wolfpack hail from Melbourne, another three-piece band, these guys play hard and fast. The band themselves are a non-for-profit band, using money from shows and sales to donate to various animal welfare charities. Much like the headliners, it’s hard to categorize them, the drummer Tom’s vocals were reminiscent of Gallows while the music could’ve been Metallica, Sabbath or the Ramones. What is was though was immensely enjoyable and fun to bear witness too. It’s infectious, it’s bouncy, it’s heavy and you almost find yourself singing along to songs you haven’t heard before, they were that engrossing.

What can you say about a band that’s been going for nearly forty years? How can you categorise a band that one minute is Thrash Metal, then moves into Punk, Hardcore, Sabbath influenced riffs and pretty much everything in between? You don’t, you just enjoy Mike Muir and his energetic band.

An excellent rendition of You Can’t Bring Me Down gets the ninety-minute show underway, with everything you wished to hear was played. War Inside My Head and Freedumb are all sung enthusiastically by not only Muir but also a packed Gov audience.

Muir is an honouree Australian, he’s lived here, his three children were born here, which makes the show almost like a homecoming for the outspoken front-man. An endless ball of energy, Muir prowls the stage side to side before coming to the front and imploring the audience to ‘Clap Like Ozzy’.

Interspersing the songs, Muir talks to the audience, making sure we are still with him and he’s with us. The ringleader of this musical circus, he knows what it takes, he knows how to engage with his stories. Wide eyed and manic, he then asks us to Send Me Your Money and I reckon most of the audience would’ve.

As the show entered its final lap, the epic I Saw Your Mommy, another song difficult to categorize as anything other than brilliant, was the anthem many had come to participate in before it slows for How Will I Laugh Tomorrow. To answer that, we will laugh, smile, chuckle even, at the fact that on a Monday night in Adelaide, we got to witness the Church of Suicidal perform a sermon we can all subscribe too tomorrow.

Live Review by Iain McCallum