LIVE REVIEW: DIRTY HONEY with special guests Dead City Ruins and Shotgun Mistress

In my 40 years of concert going I’ve seen just over 5000 shows and I can still recall the anticipation I felt in my youth seeing a band I love for the first time. One of the things I most love about Rock and Roll is that particular feeling has never diminished for me over time. From witnessing UFO play up a storm in a foreign country as my very first live show, to sneaking out of the house to go and see Hanoi Rocks or Johnny Thunders, or visiting my Uncle to go gigging in London before I left school. Then came Aerosmith and The Black Crowes, There are so many stories and so many great shows. The fact that 40 years later a band like Dirty Honey can still make me feel like that kid again who 4 decades ago discovered Rock and Roll was far more exciting live than on record, never ceases to amaze me. I’ve been listening to Dirty Honey for five years now and knew that there was no option but to fly over to Melbourne from the West to catch the final of the first four Dirty Honey shows in Australia.

Stay Gold is a great small venue in Brunswick, Melbourne, easy to get to and with a great sound, but with a small low stage and no pit it’s a bit of a nightmare to capture on film when packed and tonight couldn’t have been more packed! We got to the venue early to film some short clips with Marc, John, Justin and Jaydon, just to capture their first run in Australia and talk about our 2023 album of the year ‘Can’t Find the Brakes’. And honestly could couldn’t meet a nicer more down to earth bunch of guys, who along with their tour manager Mike made us feel completely at home as they set up for the show and sound checked.

Dirty Honey of course already have great ties to Australia – recording both of their albums with Nick DiDia in Byron Bay. It’s a match made in heaven and the sound that Nick gets out of the band is incredible. If you’re a fan then you’ll know that the debut EP is sensational; the debut album a real gem; but in second album ‘Can’t Find the Brakes’ you sense the ‘spreading of the wings’ and the sheer confidence to make a record that is unafraid to experiment. To me it’s one of the best records this Century and I know that there is more to come.

Dirty Honey has already achieved more than most bands twice their age can dream of: they’ve played with The Who, The Black Crowes, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Kiss amongst others, and opened the Stadium Tour where unlike some of their fellow performers they played completely ‘live’…

Last year has been non-stop as if they were still catching up for the lost time that Covid brought upon the world. Last year also saw them top our album of the year charts with ‘Can’t Find the Brakes’ and then this year came the announcement of Australia dates at Bluesfest, that Australian institution located back ‘home’ in Byron Bay and by all accounts they went down a storm. I knew the side shows were coming and it was so hard to sit on that news! The first of the side shows in Sydney, at the Crowbar was off the charts.

So here we are – it’s a Thursday, and a school night and by mid afternoon the Stay Gold show is on the edge of completely selling out. We get there early to catch up with the band and their wonderful tour manager Mike who looks after us and helps set up the interviews to document the five year anniversary and the first Australian Tour. Everyone is so friendly and down to earth and Ricardo the presenter couldn’t be cooler. It’s a great day and wonderful to see the fans get there early on the room steadily filling up. As doors open, we finish our last interview.

One of the best things about a show like this is when you not only get the headliner, but you also get to see and showcase local talent that compliment that band. Tonight the choices of support are on point and both do their darndest to make this an unforgettable show.

SHOTGUN MISTRESS
Working a small stage must be so much harder than working one where there is freedom to move, so Melbourne’s Shotgun Mistress fronted by the energetic and engaging Glen Patrick on vocals. make the room their stage later in the set when Glen goes wandering into the crowd popping up in the unused bar at the right side of the stage. Musically Shotgun Mistress is a great opener for tonight’s audience and a band I only saw for the first time recently when they popped up in Brisbane with their own show to make up for the cancelled Brisbane instalment of Glam Fest earlier in the year.

With a new album on the way and a cracking debut album already in the wild they get these support slots just right by starting off with a bang and packing the opening with some of their best material like recent single ‘Jude Judas’ and new track ‘Mary Jane’. It’s part good old fashioned Hard Rock with a touch of Aerosmith, plenty of emphasis on melody and sing-along lyrics. There’s also enough hard edged guitar to throw a nice Metal edge into the mix. In Dave Daniel and Ben Curnow on bass they have a killer rhythm section and I can’t say enough about guitarist Matt Wilcock – you can’t take your eyes of his playing. In a thirty plus minute set there’s no let up in energy and not a hint of filler.

Hard Rock may have had its heyday in the 70’s and 80’s but when you see bands like these on the same bill it makes Rock feel fresh and exciting again. Shotgun Mistress and Bad Moon Born who follow have to be two of the best Hard Rocking bands Australia has at the moment and playing with a band like Dirty Honey is sure to make them even more competitive.

DEAD CITY RUINS
Hard rock was the name of the game next up as the fantastic Dead City Ruins entered stage right to crank the sound up another couple of decibels with a tight set, delving into songs from their high-quality back catalogue. They are a band with pedigree, having toured Europe on more than one occasion as well as supported KISS on their End of the Road Tour, playing to a sold out Rod Laver Arena.

Tonight was up close and personal, and amongst a sea of sweat and beers, they shone. Kicking off with ‘Vision’, front man Steve Welsh delivered with power & precision as they tore through five tracks from their latest release ‘Shockwave’. Welsh played & teased the crowd, encouraging participation at every opportunity.

Guitar duellists Sean ‘Blanch’ Blanchard and Nick Casalini seem to have a passion for raising their Les Paul’s in the air, giving the band that Thin Lizzy guitar harmony vibe, all the while giving influences such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and the like a definite nod of the hat. The engine room of Nick Trajanovski (drums) & Tommy Sunset (bass) were relentless tonight, driving the Ruins on, with the crowd lapped up the five-piece’s set and all they threw at them. ‘Bones’, a favourite of mine was a welcome addition to the set with ‘Shockwave’ album opener ‘Preacher’ giving Dead City Ruins the perfect send off.

DIRTY HONEY
There’s a huge buzz in the room before Dirty Honey takes the stage and not an inch of space to move. Stay Gold is the sort of venue you dream of seeing a band like Dirty Honey in and the sort of venue that is sadly dying out all over Australia with spiraling costs. Tonight it’s our Whisky a Go Go, or our Marquee Club and it’s rocking after those openers.

The band enters the stage to roars of appreciation and they’re all smiles with Marc last on stage the room seems suspended in the moment until we plunge right in. These four down to earth, genuine guys we met this afternoon are transformed into Rock Stars the moment they hit the stage. Opening with the instantly recognisable ‘California Dreamin” from the debut record and ‘Heartbreaker’ from the EP that preceded it. And from that moment the crowd are in the palm of their hands.

It’s hard to describe a show like tonight’s when you are so caught up in the moment yourself. It’s like watching a distillation of all the bands you’ve loved right up there on Stay Gold’s dimly lit stage. At moments you feel like you could be watching a vintage Aerosmith show when John Notto just hits those sweet notes. At other times Marc could be a young Chris Robinson. As for Justin – he just bounces around with so much joy and charisma that he could only be a rock star. And at the back a coffee-fueled Jaydon plays like it’s the last Rock and Roll show on earth. ‘Scars’ sounds wonderful tonight and the first tracks from ‘Can’t Find the Brakes’ – ‘Get a Little High’ and ‘Dirty Mind’ sound just as huge as they do on the record.

The miraculous thing about these dates in Australia is that Marc came into the shows with laryngitis, but he and the band still put on a breath-taking show. I’ll wager even battling that Mr. La Belle still sounds better than most of the vocalists you will hear touring today. It’s hard to imagine what he’d sound like in full flow and tackling ‘Coming Home’ – a song sadly not in tonight’s set due to the high notes. Some people just have an ‘otherness’ about them that makes their performance completely compelling, it’s rare to find one such musician in a band, but I’ve never seen four on stage together.

The crowd knows it too, and help Marc along singing almost every vocal. There’s a huge amount of love in this room tonight and the band jams out a little more than usual I imagine to help Marc along. That in itself just adds a whole new dimension to things.

I spoke to John Notto – about his tone on the latest album, and he manages to capture a lot of that sound here, there’s a rawness to his playing that has you thinking at times of Joe Perry, but there’s so much more precision and feel. Tonight he sounds superb and the solo that closes the set is a thing of beauty. Before that though we rock along to ‘Another Last Time’ a song that just exemplifies all that I love about Rock and Roll, there’s so much feel, so much space, so much emotion and so much love it’s all I hoped it would be here tonight. The crowd sings along beautifully and man, John Notto, just in that one song shows you just how much feel he has. At the back Jaydon is just a ball of energy and has a style that is not just straight rock and roll, you can hear a little Jazz in there along with the heavy blues and a touch of Porcaro and even the master Buddy Rich.

‘When I’m Gone’ that follows starts with a searing solo by John before the rest of the band join him jumping into that huge groove is similarly stunning. This is a band who hasn’t recorded a bad song and tonight’s show is one that I’ll remember as one of the very best I’ve seen.

It’s a shorter setlist than Dirty Honey has played out on their European Tour but beautifully paced and designed to gibe Marc some space and it gives you that extra time to take it all in. It’s hard not to be captivated by Justin over the hour and a half. He not only brings the low end thunder to the band’s sound but also has the funk that makes you think of players like Glenn Hughes. When we get to the encores I’d argue that his bass solo is a real work or art.

The whole band makes this Rock and Roll look ridiculously easy, and to do that takes a lot of hard work and a lot of miles under the belt. And like the best shows it feels like it will never end whilst you are immersed in the moment, but feels like it has flown by the end. ‘Girl’s Got Rhythm’ the AC/DC cover lets you know that the show is coming to a close and it’s of course one everyone in the room knows.

We close with the crashing funky ride of ‘Won’t Take Me Alive’ that Marc introduces by amping up the Sydney-Melbourne rivalry and referencing the stage invader at the last Black Crowes show at the Palais. It’s a song that to me exemplifies the jump in song writing between the two albums. It’s got that huge Aerosmith groove that they mastered on ‘Rocks’ and ‘Draw the Line’ and to me it’s why Dirty Honey is going to be such an important band. They not only appreciate the bands I loved as a kid, they take their essence and create something fresh and exciting.

We close with the classic ‘Rolling 7’s’ but it’s an encore that first showcases the band with Jaydon, Justin and John all taking solos as we ease into the song. I love Justin’s bass funky intro to ‘Rolling 7’s’ which references the song then jumps into Jaydon’s shuffling Jazzy drum solo before John’s Blues runs free in one of the most entertaining solos I’ve heard in years. The crowd launches into the song with as much passion as the band. It’s sublime. It’s a beautiful way to end an evening I’d put right up there with the best shows I have seen, not this year, not this decade, full stop.

The band take their bows and it’s over and back to Byron to try out some ideas for album number three. And the crowd files out into the Melbourne night with huge grins and the certain knowledge that Rock and Roll is safe and well.

After the show I tell Justin that one of my favourite moments was his bass solo. He looks at me for a minute, thinks about it, and smiling says to me “Really?” half expecting me to be joking. I smile back and tell him that the whole show was great, but that it was moments like that that took it to another level. When you see a show like this there can be no doubt in your mind that Rock and Roll is just not alive, it’s alive and well and screaming. The second coming of Rock and Roll, brothers and sisters, is just around the corner and Dirty Honey is leading us there.