One mundane weekday night about a year ago, I was sitting on my couch blasting Triple J radio, wondering if there was ANYTHING I could do to keep myself entertained until I had to shuffle off to work early the next morning. That’s when I heard it – the crazy scream of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!’ from Violent Soho’s Luke Boerdam. I fell in love instantly. It had been so long since I’d experienced that through music, and I had to find out which band it was ASAP.
After I discovered Violent Soho, I couldn’t believe I had gone my entire life without hearing them before. I proceeded to buy both of their studio albums, as well as delving deep into the internet to find anything else they may have recorded – I found a few covers of some obscure old Australian punk bands, as well as some old stuff that was completely different, although I didn’t love it any less.
Six months later, I found myself with tickets to Soho’s completely sold out national tour, two nights in a row in Sydney. I think it’s safe to say that this was probably the best week of my life – and the fact that Melbourne’s Smith Street Band were national supporters was just the icing on the cake!
After already seeing Soho once at this year’s Groovin The Moo festival in Canberra, I knew that they definitely knew how to put on a legendary show. In saying this however, I have no qualms in admitting that this gig was probably the best I’ve ever been to – and I’ve been going to rock shows since I was about twelve.
To start with, it was ridiculously fun to get crazy to Wil Wagner’s classic Australian drawl, along with the unique sound of the Celtic music festival-esque guitars – enough to get anyone pumped for what was to come.
As the band walked out on stage, I fully abandoned the promise I made to myself that I would stay out of the pit this time – I decided that I just wanted to enjoy the music from a distance, while still being able to see (I’m quite short, so usually as soon as a band starts all I can see is the backs of people’s shirts…). Oh, how wrong I was. As soon as I heard the opening notes to ‘Dope Calypso’, the opening song on the band’s latest album ‘Hungry Ghost’ and usually the opening song for their shows, I couldn’t resist getting right into the pit.
About two minutes in, I got brutally punched in the face by a faceless guy who seemed just as into it as I was, which resulted in me losing half my front tooth… Not the best start to a mosh, right? Except at that point, I didn’t even care. With my mouth full of unbearable pain, I kept on – and it was so, so totally worth it.
I ended up having one of the best nights of my life, by screaming along the lyrics to every single song the band played; attempting to crowdsurf to one of my favourite tunes, ‘In the Aisle’ (which has the best riff to get mental to); and make a whole heap of new friends along the way.
Now it has been two months since the concert, I’ve just had my tooth completely fixed, and the band’s just released an announcement of another national tour in celebration of their certified gold album – which made me excited as all hell. As soon as the tickets went on sale I was on that website like a moth to a flame, and got myself two more tickets – for both the Sydney and Wollongong gigs. Can’t wait to do it alllllll again!
Keely Thompson 
Awesome blog 🙂 I can totally relate to how you discovered them! I was sitting in my car listening to the J’s when I heard that crazy good pre-chorus. Needless to say I Shazam-ed it straight away, went and bought their albums, and now they’re my favourite band! Luke Henery even inspired me to start playing bass. Great Aussie band, cannot wait to see them in November!