Electric Six @ The Gov, Adelaide 10/3/2023
What a weekend to be in Adelaide with so much live music happening everywhere and even better to see so many people out and about supporting these shows. The Gov was absolutely packed to see Electric Six celebrate the twentieth anniversary of their breakthrough album Fire. This show was absolutely dynamite from start to end and a masterstroke from Metropolis Touring bringing these guys out to Australia. I would even rate it as one of the best shows I have seen this year.
Hard to believe it has been nearly eighteen years since the Electric Six last played Adelaide. I was there, yes I’m showing my age, back in 2005 at Fowlers Live. They were fantastic then and they are incredible now. No doubt one of the most underrated bands going round. Spiritual leader Dick Valentine has plenty swagger and charisma and his band are absolute guns. So there was definite an element of making up for lost time as they charged their way through the first set which featured all the fan favs.
After Hours and Bride Of The Devil got things off to an electrifying start and after Rock and Roll Evacuation, Valentine asked the masses “can you feel it Adelaide”. The atmosphere was awesome and the crowd were literally going off and wanting to make this a night to remember. Set one was a good spread of the back catalogue which they had plenty to draw on from some eighteen albums. Even Valentine said jokingly that they played their worst five songs first and tried convincing the crowd they were ‘popping gas’ at the airport saying that people were pointing at them saying Electric Six are not cool any more.
So many awesome songs in the set from the likes of The New Shampoo, Night Vision, The Afterlife, (Who the Hell Just) Call My Phone?, Dance Epidemic and I Buy The Drugs which are lyrically clever and musically brilliant. At this point Valentine took a moment to reflect saying that it was eighteen years since they were last here in the mid thirties and that they had a “sense of growth’ and ‘responsibility’ and that it wasn’t about the after party any more even suggesting they were a ‘political band’. He added for fans to sign the petition at the merch desk if they wanted them to come back indicating that ‘pages and pages of signatures’ would end up in parliament.
After a short break the band returned to play Fire in full from start to end. Whilst there were no surprises with the set list they took it up another notch and the crowd matched them. Dance Commander go things going in an absolute blaze of fury and the obvious favourites were Danger! High Voltage and Gay Bar. Other highlights included Nuclear War and Vengeance and Fashion. Whilst closing album songs I’m The Bomb and Synthesizer are good songs I reckon an encore would have topped things off wrapping a great show. With the twentieth anniversary of second album Señor Smoke coming up lets hope there is another tour planned.
Live Review By Rob Lyon