Project Description

YUNGBLUD

@ THE FORUM THEATRE

02/01/2020

(Live Review)

REVIEWER: KELSEY HENTSCHEL

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Right off the bat, every single person in the queue for this show oozed individuality. The scene isn’t about fashion, its aesthetic choices, it’s about an attitude and a philosophy. Acceptance and understanding are the order of the day for Yungblud fans, and it was extremely refreshing to witness.

The UK’s rowdy pop-punk rebel Dominic “YUNGBLUD” Harrison is already a hero in Melbourne. On the same day that Falls Festival in Lorne, Victoria was cancelled due to extreme weather conditions, he and promoters hurriedly organised two back-to-back fundraising gigs for rural fire services at The Tote. Yungblud & a few other performers managed to raise over $100k in aid of the Australian fires. He joins us again for his official sideshow at The Forum Theatre.

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Harrison’s opening act is Kira Puru – an artist concurring upbeat, empowering, soulfully resonant R&B, disco and pop. Being a big fan of Kira pre-show I was one of the few singing along to her iconic track ‘Molotov’. Granted their styles may be rather different, but Kira and Yungblud’s demographics are one in the same. If you’re a fan of Lizzo, I’d definitely recommend looking up Miss Puru.

YUNGBLUD bursts onto the stage right on time with the title track from 2018’s debut album, 21st Century Liability. He is Marilyn Manson with the energy of Wu-Tang Clan. Why go see a My Chemical Romance reunion when you can be right here on the front lines of the new movement. Either way, his brand is being “really fookin’ loud”. The rager acknowledges his local following, thanking Melburnians (well, Aussies) for supporting him as early as 2017. He talks passionately, too, about LGBTQIA+ inclusivity.

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“This song is about parents”, deafening screams from the crowd. Dom plays out the anthemic ‘Parents’. It’s easily to cynically blow this off, but a lot of kids need this. You did, I did, and kids until the end of time will need a connection to these feelings Yungblud taps into. My favourite line from this song is rather intriguing and will give you an idea of what the rest of the track id about; “My daddy put a gun to my head, said if you kiss a boy I’m gonna shoot you dead, So I tied him up with gaffer tape, And I locked him in a shed, Then I went out to the garden, And I fucked my best friend”.

Harrison plays his fan favourites ‘I Love You, Will You Marry Me’, a poignant tale of a working-class Romeo And Juliet and gentrification. Even bigger is the punk-funk bop Anarchist. Then there is Harrison’s unlikely, and sobering, hit Polygraph Eyes, about dismantling toxic masculinity & rape culture – something he describes as “very important”.

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Harrison also draws solidly from October’s EP, The Underrated Youth. The single ‘Original Me’ works exceptionally as a live anthem with its Electro elements, as does 2019’s successful single Loner. The crowd parts like the red sea to allow Harrison through as he performs a stripped version of ‘Kill Somebody’, punters singing along. Back on stage, Harrison reconfigures his Machine Gun Kelly collab ‘I Think I’m Okay’ and continues into recent hit ‘Casual Sabotage’.

The gig quickly turns into a protest of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s dire response to the climate emergency. Harrison has been quick to discern the sentiment of Australia’s youth. Many of his fans (known as the Black Hearts Club) have brought “Fuck ScoMo” signs and, later, there are chants (footage of which goes viral).

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Harrison’s three-song encore is the ideal climax, opening the encore with my personal favourite ‘California’. During the hopeful ‘Hope For The Underrated Youth’, he bounces around with a rainbow flag. The finale is ‘Machine Gun (Fuck The NRA)’. Harrison announces that, as is ritual, he’ll meet his Black Hearts in The Forum’s alleyway post-gig. Outside, fans swarm into the tight alley for the chance to meet their idol.

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Check out Josh Pike’s gallery of the Sydney show HERE

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TRACKLISTING:

braindead! 
parents
original me (feat. dan reynolds of imagine dragons)
casual sabotage
hope for the underrated youth
waiting on the weekend

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AMNPLIFY – DB