Gig review: Orange Goblin + Dr Colossus + Astrodeath at Crowbar, Sydney

Live review: Orange Goblin, Dr Colossus and Astrodeath at the Crowbar, Sydney, Friday, April 12 2024

By BRIAN GIFFIN

IT’S been 11 years since Orange Goblin last graced Australian shores, at a little event called Soundwave. Tonight, Sydney put on a very solid crowd for the band’s long-overdue re-appearance, with the welcome mat also being thrown out heartily to both opening acts.

The Crowbar typically plays fast and loose with set times, and Astrodeath hit the stage as soon as they were ready, almost 10 minutes before their allocated slot was due to start. The moment they fired up, the bar emptied into the band room to greet them and their riff-infested two-piece sludge. Tim’s overdriven guitar makes any other instrument unnecessary but for Yoshi’s massive and cannoning drums that crack and rattle around the room. With a sound fuller than some bands with twice and three times as many members, they work the crowd with their easy-going attitude and heavy grooving sludge, making for a perfect opening act, although the amount of gear on stage precluded their usual invitation for the audience to join them up there for “Children of the Grave”. 

Dr Colossus followed the evening’s convention and kicked off even earlier than Astrodeath had been and while most of us were still trying to grab a quick beer between sets. Within a few seconds of their rhythmic drive flooding through the venue, however, everyone was soon there to sing along with insanely catchy tunes about TV’s favourite yellow family. When the ripping riff of “Pickabar” locked in, the crowd fell in with it, singing back “Jerry the cowboy/Jerry the cowboy/the big dipper thing is Alan the cowboy” without any prompting from Jono or any of the other Stonecutters, but that’s nothing compared to the singalong “Woah-oh, the miracle mile” during ‘Lard Lad’. Jono even cracked himself a bit in that one. Little snippets of the show pop up throughout the set in case you can’t tell what Dr Colossus’ overarching theme is, but even without the Simpsons schtick, Dr Colossus would be a fun and entertaining band; their sludgy guitar grooves are so catchy the set seems to just fly by and they finish with a “song about wearing an onion on your belt”.

By now the crowd had twigged to the bands coming on early so the room was packed when Orange Goblin appeared. The unnaturally tall Ben Ward strode to the mic, introduced the band and then metallic bluesy sludge was unleashed into the night. Like Motörhead meeting Black Sabbath in a Hadron collider, Orange Goblin smashed their way through a huge and wide-ranging set. Ward grins like a friendly giant and waves thumbs-up after every song, warmly engaging as he intros a track – “Some of you people down the front weren’t born with this came out!” he says ahead of “Saruman’s Wish”; “We’ve been to Australia twice and we’ve played here twice, guess that makes us locals now!” he proclaims later on as track after track rolls over the crowd. “Made Of Rats” and “Some You Win, Some You Lose” get everyone singing back at the band and “The Man Who Invented Time” receives a warm welcome. Every album gets a look-in, even the new one, Science, Not Fiction, with the punked out “(Not) Rocket Science” living up to the implications of its name. It’s all amped-up, fuzzed out, heavy as hell rock and roll, looping bass, dirty blues grooves and scorching solos and Ward’s rumbling, gravelly voice creating a feedback loop of energy and sweaty fun with the heaving Crowbar audience. There’s no break for an encore, Orange Goblin just barrelling right through to a close on “Red Tide Rising” and saying their farewells, bringing to an end an evening of powerhouse rock and roll from three outstanding purveyors of the form. 

Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 11 years for Orange Goblin to rock us here again.