Gig review: letlive + Stepson at the Manning Bar, Sydney

Live review: letlive and Stepson at the Manning Bar, Sydney on Saturday, September 6 2025

By PAUL SOUTHWELL

HAVING reunited recently for a proper farewell jaunt, progressive soul punk band letlive were intent on delving into their celebrated back catalogue.

Brisbane’s Stepson had a small false start as a laptop with an introductory track crashed. After ironing out of said technical issues, they proceeded to reboot their set with their ominous electronica introduction ripping through the venue. Beanie-sporting frontman Brock Alan Conry declared, ‘Let’s fucking get amongst it,’ and they were off, launching into the angst of“Come With Me”.

Heavy riffage ensued from the twin guitar band, with backing vocals from bassist Jayden Ridley and co-guitarist Nickolas Sean Farr. Drummer Jordan McDonald smashed his kit with intensity, walloping cymbals, as the octave drone guitar figures worked alongside the screaming, harsh vocals.

Second track “Deeper Sleep” from their 2021 debut studio album Help Me, Help You started with an arpeggiated shuffle feel that soon morphed into a heavier track, with some melodic backing vocals, as Conry moved between leaning into the foldback wedge, or singing to his microphone near the stage drum riser. The content became noticeably heavier with the initially sedate-sounding “The Entire History of You”, which soon saw harsh vocals, screams and wide chords from Farr. Fellow guitarist Nick Bennett delved into higher register parts, pick slides and a slew of low-end riffs, to then end on a slow, chorus-filled guitar figure.

The pace settled a tad with “Discover Lonely”, which allowed some fills with a more open drumming figure,and higher register vocals. Heavier track “Venom” was blasted out with suitable ferocity, as Ridley spun around, dodging their band photographer who ventured onto the stage, or kept whipping along the front of stage barrier dropping a volley of flashes.

To conclude their set, “Eraser” let the band play with arrangements as backing tracks mixed with some rhythmic finger tapped passages from Bennett against the chordal approach of Farr’s guitar style, with more vocal screaming. It was a short, sharp, 25-minute set, and seemed to go over pretty well with the growing audience.

A quick changeover cleared the stage of any equipment clutter. It was replaced by a simple black cloth backdrop, a twin drum riser for a single bass drum kit and a few instrument speaker cabinets, with minimalist, sturdy guitar controller boards. It needed to be sparse as this last round of shows from letlive for Australia promised to dip into an energy blast that was unbridled.

Sure enough, guitarists Jean Nascimentio and Jeff Sahyoun took up their positions, facing speaker cabinets to extract some feedback sustain from their howling guitars as “Le Prologue” set up proceedings. Touring members Skyler Acord and Sage Webber were locked into the same demolition game plan. Wearing smart casual unbuttoned black shirt and pants, frontman force of nature Jason Butler bounded on stage and with minimal fuss the band let rip on “The Sick, Sick, 6.8 Billion” with some shaker work from Nascimentio and a variety of explosive uses of water bottles from Butler.

Running on the spot or around the small stage and just generally bouncing, Sahyoun was a ball of energy that Butler could easily match. A brief greeting from Butler and it was into “The Dope Beat” from The Blackest Beautiful, with Nascimentio starting off the opening riff before Sahyoun joined in with an open chorus guitar sound. “Casino Columbus” and “Banshee (Ghost Fame)” followed, with circle pits breaking out, audience singalongs aplenty and Butler standing at the stage front.

Butler shared some deeper thoughts with the audience, revealing his ongoing works through rebuilding relationships, offering admissions of some impacts coming from self-inflicted activities, all adding impetus to “Muther”, which included arpeggiated chordal work from Nascimentio. By way of discussing the state of his Los Angeles background, he encouraged the audience to find their sense of resistance to totalitarian rule, adding gravitas to a ferocious delivery of “Good Mourning, America” from the If I’m the Devil… album. A rendition of “Dreamer’s Disease” provided a similarly powerful performance, with Butler climbing under the side of the drum riser, to use the hanging cloth backdrop as a cape.

Sahyoun’s muted guitar rhythm figures gave “Pheromone Cvlt” from The Blackest Beautiful, a tighter delivery. Now shirtless, exposing his heavily tattooed torso, Butler added some insane energy to “27 Club”, with a closely monitored running stage dive into the audience, with his microphone. Back on the stage, Butler was in Iggy Pop style performance mode, keeled over, and then writhing on his back, and emoting with vocal power as the lighting rig set off a strobe effect, and then with letlive completing the main set, feedback filled the venue.

The encore saw Butler offer a small monologue on the deeper meanings behind the lyrics of “I’ve Learned to Love Myself”, the second track aired tonight from the If I’m the Devil… album. It was an intense performance, as more audience members took to crowd surfing over the stage barrier, keeping the security staff and other staff ring-ins unusually busy this evening. More dual muted guitar riffs ensued, including some brief finger picked work from Sahyoun, as the set continues with “Empty Elvis”, during which Butler decided to climb up on two front-of-stage fold back wedges and stack them vertically – somewhat precariously – as the band’s guitar tech and venue staff valiantly stabilised the impromptu structure.

Atop the wedges, Butler sang and blew a kiss to the audience, then returned to the stage, much to the relief of staging crew. Finishing the set with “Day 54”, the energy continued to burn, as the audience sang back the lyrics with enthusiasm and as it concluded, Butler waved goodbye and dropped the mic, with the thud echoing over the PA. The band left the stage with a true, ‘job done’ punk rock work ethic.

Tonight, letlive met the hype, and delivered one of the more intense shows to be experienced at a club level in a long time. They farewelled their Sydney fans in truly epic fashion. It was really something genuinely special from letlive, a show that delivered on all counts and far exceeded expectations.