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British four-piece, Catfish and the Bottlemen have been dominating the rock scene the last for the last few years, gaining a massive fan base all over the world and they’re only two albums deep. Thanks to Splendour, Catfish came out to Aus to do perform a live set but not without doing some side shows as well. What we got was brilliant, something you couldn’t find any flaw in from the start of the support to the final song of the main act.

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CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN – Photo: Len Panecki

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The front half of the stage was made into it’s own space for Fountaineer to come out. Starting out with a slow track that slowly built into a massive climax, where front man Anthony White showed off his strong vocals for the it’s culmination. There was an energy to Fountaineer that you don’t see in most supporting acts, and you could tell the crowd felt that too, while it seemed they didn’t know the words, it didn’t stop anyone from getting into their songs. Playing their tracks about their hometown of Bendigo, such as Still Life, Lights Beyond the Edge of Town and their most well known track at the moment The Cricketers. Finishing off with an on stage jam session and a backing track, Anthony White shredding on the guitar, the keys a great standout, Fountaineer giving us an undeniably great opener.

Then it was time, the crowd waiting and watching the doors carefully to see when their idols would walk out. The lights went out and the crowd screamed, a voice over the PA sounding “Ladies and Gentlemen, we… are… LIVE!”. They walked out, their third time in Australia, bright, lime green lights lit the entire stage, Van, Bob, Benji and Bondy walked to their positions, girls screaming at the fact that they were finally getting to witness these men in real life. Van sang “I got mislead, mistook, discard…”, the crowd enticed from the first word as they proceeded to belt out every word of Homesick. Catfish played songs from both their debut and Sophomore albums, though there were so many stand out moments for nearly each song. The brightly blue lit stage for Business gave us a brilliant drum solo from Bob, where Soundcheck and Anything had the standout guitar solos. 7 gave front man McCan a chance to flaunt his vocals, beautifully holding the notes at the end of each line in the chorus. Outside and Twice gave a great balance of energetic rock but also gave the crowd moments to slow down with their outros. But the most special moment was easily Hourglass, just Van on stage with an acoustic guitar, he sang the first line, heard the crowd’s voice and let them sing the first verse. But when he continued the rest of it with such a huge audience, it was a great moment of stillness for a show that had been incredibly non-stop.

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From Kathleen to Pacifier, Cocoon to Postpone, Fallout to finishing it off traditionally with Tyrants, Catfish and the Bottlemen gave Melbourne a show that I don’t know if the fans could forget. You couldn’t fault anything on that stage that night. Each member had their own stand out moments, and every time Van held his guitar up in the air, the crowds hands seemed to be up in praise but almost worship as well.

In every way, a spectacle.

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Check out Len Panecki’s gallery of this show HERE

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AMNPLIFY – DB