Blackwater at The Annandale Hotel – 4th September 2008

Firstly, this was one of the loudest nights of rock I had been to in a while, so it suited the Annandale house perfectly. Nothing’s fits better.

The first two songs belted out were ‘Don’t Ask’ followed by ‘Fever’, though both high energy tracks, the latter being more reminiscent of a Deep Purple tune. After first hearing ‘Fever’ over two years ago at the Lansdowne, I’m glad I have last night’s comparison to make. It’s a catchy song and even with the band member changes that have taken place over that period of time it still has that memorable sing-it-back-to-yourself riff, though now far heavier and more suited to the darker BLACKWATER songs like ‘Deliverin’ Death’ and ‘Staying Hard’.

It was wicked hearing ‘Shake It Easy’ and singing “SHAKE!” back to the stage with everyone around me. Absent from the set was ‘Blackwater Blues’ which to me was the epitome of disappointment, I’ll just have to hold out til next time.

Ending on ‘Broken House Rules’ was a high point for me, “Louder than the speed of sound, crazy like a priest/you can count your blessings with the number of the beast/ THE BROKEN HOUSE RULES”. This was well followed by the encore number, ‘Hang Em High’, a heavy head-banger if I ever heard one, every single time.

I’m looking forward to hearing how these live performances translate over to an album. If they do so in an equally heavy and uncompromising way and manage to capture their ability to bring melodic rock into the forefront (something unseen for the most part in Sydney), well I guess I’ll be saving my pocket change for that launch.