Dune Rats + Cosmic Psychos + The Mis-Made
Manning Bar, Sydney
19 June 2015
Review and photo by Gwendolyn Lee
Despite the dreary rainy weather on Friday, Dune Rats and Cosmic Psychos gig at Manning Bar was happening and nothing was going to stop their fans from getting there. I knew I was in for a night of fun and absolutely crazy experience as I’ve seen both bands live before. But together, at such a killer venue? Unbelievable.
First up to warm up the crowd were Sydney locals The Mis-Made, who I’ve yet to listen to before. They were a great start to the night, as they drew in a good crowd of fans old and new, and smashed it on stage.
The wait before Cosmic Psychos felt like quite some time, but once the lights went down you could tell that with three decades on their back, the Psychos had one hell of a following right there. Now a night of Aussie punk rock just isn’t right without a mention or two of the pub, right? Right. Without missing a beat, they soon launched straight into Nice Day To Go To The Pub, which was nothing short of fun. Frontman Ross Knight made a nice little song dedication to our much loved (NOT!) PM Tony Abbott, also mentioning that they had put his name down on the door list. If only he really came out to the gig!
As I was watching the rest of the set, I was torn between enjoying the stage and the mosh pit, and crowd surfers and moshers were putting on damn good show themselves- it’s hard to distinguish who was having a better time, really. Regardless, by the time their set was almost up, Knight hoped that “this marriage equality thing” would get passed in Australia so that he could marry all three members of the Dune Rats and have a damn good time with them…if you know what I mean!
Despite not technically being “sold out”, by the time Dune Rats were about to hit the stage, the entire venue was practically packed out with both young and older punters huddled up close anxiously waiting for the Dunies to start their set. You could tell it was going to be a rowdy night, with four security guards lined up the front before they’d even started.
After smashing their way into the start of their set, it was really just hard to keep up with them on stage, and I wasn’t expecting anything less than exactly that. Flying through their hits, the Dunies played Superman and F*ck It, before getting into one of their latest hits Dalai Lama, Big Banana, Marijuana, which had the punters pretty damn excited! You couldn’t really help but dance and sing-along while getting into some mind blanking musical trance. Now that’s pure stoner pop right there.
Frontman Danny Beusa let us all know that they were contracted to play for an hour, but seeing as they didn’t have an hour’s worth of material, that they’d fill in that time with other things. Hey, if it’s entertaining, why not, right? Crazy moshpits means flying bodies, torn clothes and lost shoes, and well, after seeing a shoe fly across the room, BC Michaels took one for the team and now I can officially say that I’ve witnessed the all-famous piss-crazy crowd-pleaser act of a musician actually drinking booze from an old, worn out shoe. I’m still yet to decide whether I should be grossed out or impressed.
The rest of the night was one long (or short) stream of fun and crazy mixed in a blender, with the band “pretending to finish” their set with Red Light Green Light, which saw Danny pretend to walk off to the side of stage, only to come straight back to his mic about a minute later, killing it with their last two “fake encore” songs Home Sick and Funny Guy. It’s kind of hard to simply summarise a Dune Rats gig, and if you’ve ever been to one, you’ll know what I mean. There’s just far too many “you had to be there” moments to list.
