The Vines
Winning Days
On Sale Now
For $13.28

What better way to spend a Tuesday night in Lawrence, Kansas than to go see 2 of the current hottest power Rock bands around perform Live?

The headliners at Liberty Hall were Jet and The Vines. Both bands are from Australia, are lumped in the ‘retro-rock/garage rock’ genre, and excel in the 3 chord power rock that is so endearing to those of us who love our Rock loud and hard.

The Australian garage rock band Jet is comprised of Cameron Muncey (guitar/vocals), brothers Chris Cester (drums) and Nic Cester (guitar), and Mark Wilson (bass). Hailing from Melbourne, these guys play a high energy Rock that is very catchy, evident by the huge success of their recent CD release Get Born. They came on stage at around 9:15 pm with the crowd in an anxious mood. Nic sauntered onto the stage, uttered some Aussie accented words that were un-intelligable, and excused himself for being just a bit drunk. The crowd roared and the gig was on.

Jet’s sound is much harder and raw Live than the crisp, clean rock sound on their album. Their set consisted of 5 songs, the first 4 from their Get Born CD. It started with the ballad “Look What You’ve Done”, followed quickly by the up-tempo “Get Me Outta Here” and the radio friendly “Rollover DJ”. The crowd came to life with the next song, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”. This is becoming a popular song as well and sports a powerful Guitar riff and resounding Bass lines. They finished their set with the Elvis Presley classic “That’s All Right”. I thought they did a fine rendition, with the main chorus done slower followed by a 4 man power Rock-out between choruses. These guys have the potential to be big, and seeing them perform Live was an appetizer of things to come.

The Vines followed after 25 minutes of set-up. Founded in Sydney in the late 90s, they were quickly compared to the garage rock bands of that era; The White Stripes, The Hives, etc though they did have an explosive side which was reminiscent of Nirvana. I have been a fan of this band since the release of their debut CD Highly Evolved. I love how a band can display their talent by mixing their songwriting and energy up. They can go from a beautiful ballad like “Autumn Shade” and in the next breath pound out the all out Rocker “Get Free”. This is a very talented band in this age of repetitive chord pounding and screaming lead singers shouting negative lyrics.

Craig Nicholls is a unique lead singer with a magnetic stage presence. Most of the 12-song set list came from their new release Winning Days. Their set was heavy on the hard, tight and heavy tunes like “Ride” which opens their new CD. After a 10 song flurry the band promptly set down their instruments and walked off the stage, only returning after the entire audience screamed for several minutes for an encore. Come on, we hadn’t heard “Get Free” yet! The band obliged and “Get Free” was the last song played which caused body surfing and wild crowd thrashing from in front of the stage.

As impressed as I was with Jet, The Vines are a real talent that has the potential to take over the Rock world. Aside from Nicholls fronting skills, their rhythm section is awesome. Patrick Matthews played a great Bass and adds vocals. Hamish Rosser is as talented on the drums as I’ve witnessed in a long while (think of Phil Rudd – AC/DCs fabled drummer). Guitarist Ryan Griffiths rounds out the quartet.

I trust we’ll be hearing much more from this band in the years to come!

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