You Am I - The Metro, Sydney (October 16th)

With their recent self-titled release garnering all kinds of praise, Aussie rock dignitaries You Am I swung by their home town for a night of old and new at a packed Metro Theatre.

Bands with nigh on iconic status must have a fucker of a time putting a set-list together. With the Smashing Pumpkins playing a few kilometres North of the Metro, there were at least two bands playing in Sydney who could attest to that. For You Am I, one of Australia’s most loved bands of the 1990’s, you’ve got to satisfy an age range of about 40 years judging from the size of the bald spots of some, and fresh-faced, rosy cheeks of others. So, as we just said, with that many people burning the candle for You Am I’s past AND a great new album on the shelves, you’ve got a fucker of a time on your hands while you’re scribbling down that setlist.

Launching into a few tracks from their latest self-titled outing - that many have heralded their best since Hourly, Daily – the crowd responded somewhat flatly. Hands were in pockets with heads nodding in time to We Hardly Knew You and Shuck, but it’s not like they were running for the doors. It wasn’t until You Am I started venturing further back into their discography (or as Tim Rogers put it; going back in time) that the masses started thriving. From Devon patches to Tame Impala t-shirts, it was tracks like Minor Byrd and Mr. Milk that had the packed front rows resembling an out-of-synch Mexican wave. And whilst Berlin Chair and Hourly, Daily were left in everyone’s record collections back home, it was Purple Sneakers that sent the chills around the crowd. The opening bars to Sneakers had as good as everyone grinning like a cross-legged kid listening to Triple J in 1996, an ability that few bands of that era have retained.

The music aside and it’s You Am I’s onstage dynamics that tend to sell so many tickets. While Rogers plays modest in interviews, he’s not reticent at all to mock offense after a crowd surf resulted in the groping of the “Golden Chalice of Rogerstein.” Meanwhile, Andy Kent throws his spent picks at Davey Lane while Rogers mocks him as the kid of the band who, in turn, takes it all with a grin. Rogers carries on about their island home off the coast of Holland and leaves the stage for a costume change to a glittering golden dinner jacket whilst drinking wine from the bottle. It’s all proper rock n roll stuff, and it’s not like they’re a band who can’t get away with it.

Back to the music, and things haven’t fizzled to nothing after Purple Sneakers. Lanie Lane (introduced as “too related to Davey for any of us to have a crack at”) takes the stage for the Jagger-esque strut, Trigger Finger, with Lane and Rogers back to back as she screams “you ain’t easy.” You Am I then go back in time almost as far back as they can to the opener from Sound As Ever, Copriolalia. It’s here that the band give even more shit to Davey Lane for jumping the gun on what was originally a Rogers/Kent/Tunaley, back-to-basics punk song.  

With how much time this set-list covered, from 1993 to 2010, it’s incredible to see how far this band has come. While it’s hard not to get a kick out of hearing Copriolalia again, you do get an understanding for why they tend to leave that era behind for their more mature and well-rounded works…and with tracks like The Good Ones shooting forth from their latest release, how could you possibly be bitter about not hearing Berlin Chair?

With a few maligned releases in the last few years, 2010 was looking like a daunting fork in the road for You Am I. They could have ended up as a band like Primal Scream, touring their greatest album in full as an admission of stagnation, but 2010 has marked a new stage in the You Am I story. It most definitely feels like Chapter Two, and with a release like their most recent and shows like these, well, I’d say they’ve proved that any chances of them becoming a novelty act are now dead and buried.

You Am I's national tour continues throughout October and November over these dates, while their latest album, You Am I, is out now on Other Tongues.