The all female grunge/punk rockers known as L7 returned to Australia after almost 2 decades to give the Aussie fans a taste of what the band were all about back in the day before they originally disbanded. It was great to see this band back again and they came with a truckload of hit songs in that all familiar L7 fashion, it may be the first for some but it was pure nostalgia for many who were around in the 90’s.
Local Perth act Nerve Quakes opened the show as supporting band and kept things simmering for the growing crowd with their almost psychedelic and soulful take on garage rock. They were certainly a little different to L7 but kinda fitting in a way, it may have been less rocky than what was to come next but they held their own and shined through in subtle ways.
L7 finally came out who a now packed crowd as the L.A. quartet hit the stage with early tracks like “Deathwish” much to the delight of the fans who clearly knew all the songs straight off the bat. Sharing vocal duties here and there between Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner, both singers sounded in great form as Donita led the way through the set with a multitude of hit songs and catchy hooks. Although labelled as a grunge kind of band, the rebellious and fun attitude and hooky singalong lyrics really screamed more punk here as evident with crowd and just the overal tone of the band’s sound.
Covering their entire back catalogue from the self titled debut to the 1999 “Slap-Happy album including the aptly titled “Crackpot Baby”, there was no letting up as the whiff of familiarity enveloped the entire room as the crowd lapped it up and got into it with gleeful submission. A highlight of the evening was the lesser known “Must Have More” which oozes Black Sabbath inspired doom-laden heavy riffage, one of the more darker sounding songs and a hell of a great song to hear live. It’s a far departure from the more poppier “Shitlist” which came near the end of the set but also showing the range of the band as that was also another highlight and a definite crowd pleaser.
Of course the encore had to happen as there was still 1 particular song that hadn’t made the set yet and when L7 busted out “Pretend We’re Dead”, there wasn’t a single person in the audience not singing along to what is now one of the trademark L7 songs. Whether you were around the first time it came out or it was fresh to your ears just recently, there’s good reason why so many people love this song and you could tell by the amount of smiles on the faces of the band who seemed pretty excited to be back in Australia that they enjoyed playing it as much as we enjoyed hearing it. The punky riff driven “Fast And Frightening” closed out the show and we all knew seeing L7 back again was well worth it, do yourselves a favor and catch this band live on tour before it’s too late!
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