The Best of HELMET - Brisbane 2023
Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media | Thursday 27th April 2023
Photos by: Nino Lo Giudice >> View the FULL GALLERY
Three Years of Patience Pays Off in Brisbane
Of all the 2020 COVID cancellations, HELMET hurt the most. This most legendary and obtuse rock band had promised a thirty-song set with no opening band. Now, here we stand in the Tivoli, having just scanned our tickets that were bought three years previously. Patience is a virtue … but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t wearing thin when it’s been an hour and a half and not a single note of music has been played yet.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, HELMET emerge onstage – Page Hamilton strapping on a guitar with a beaming smile. A gig like this comes along very rarely. How do you open your show when there is no opening band? The answer, it seems, is with an utterly volcanic Milquetoast, and the crowd surges behind me. After more than three decades, they sound as unique as ever – Page’s jazz-like shredding like a layer of white noise over a rhythm section with a groove heavy enough to crack concrete. There’s nothing like seeing someone enjoying their work, and bassist Dave Case is having a good time tonight, working the crowd as Page loses himself in solo after solo. Blacktop and Rollo are car chase anthems, and Wilma’s Rainbow almost levels the building.
The consummate music fan, Page takes a moment to appreciate the different band shirts in the front row. At one point during the set a shirt is hurled onstage, draping itself across Page’s mics. He unfurls it, and is impressed to see that it’s a vintage HELMET design. If they had just kept writing songs like Unsung, they would have been mainstream chart-toppers into the 2000s, but that’s simply not who they are, and that same attitude has been used in picking the set tonight. This is not a greatest hits affair. The off-kilter bounce of The Silver Hawaiian shifts into I Know, and the punters around me cheer at the various deep cuts on offer tonight, at one point throwing a baggie of … cigarettes onto the stage, which are scooped up appreciatively. But there’s no getting away from a song like Unsung, and its galloping snare intro sends the Tivoli into hysterics.
Page takes a moment to introduce the band, who have been playing under the HELMET banner since 2010’s Seeing Eye Dog, before they plunge back into things with Overrated and Bad Mood. A guitar teacher in his spare time, Hamilton shows complete mastery over his instrument tonight, subjecting it to an endless barrage of creative abuse that would make Hendrix proud, and the furious riffage of Turned Out is a sight to behold, before the band leave the stage with their fists in the air, their instruments left squealing with feedback.
The crowd knows that there is unfinished business, and after a few minutes of teasing, the band return. The Tivoli roars, and HELMET plunge into Speechless. The encore takes a surprising turn through the warped country twang of Sam Hell, before Page thanks the venue and staff for their work, saying that this has been the best sound they’ve had all tour. “This is the weirdest song I ever wrote … with the HOUSE OF PAIN cats …” and I promptly lose my shit because I know exactly what’s coming. They launch into the bruising rap metal of Just Another Victim from the Judgement Night soundtrack, and the pit explodes, before the screaming feedback leads into the epic drum roll for In the Meantime. It’s fucking glorious. The band say their goodbyes, flicking picks and setlists into the crowd, and we head off into the night. After three years of waiting, it was a spectacular show.
All photos by: Nino Lo Giudice - Click below to see the FULL GALLERY
