A damp Friday night here in Adelaide, and despite several promising to come with me to see Red Fang (not liz though, she'd apologised well in advance) and I ended up going in alone. No biggie - I've done this several times before, and it's a good way to see a show.
Sadly in my opinion, the organisers got the order of the support acts wrong, with the shitty Kinds of the North as the main headliner, with US band The Shrine and locals Spacebong playing earlier. Too early for me to see unfortunately. I couldn't get there until about 9:00pm, at which time the fist two supports had already played (and from my impression quite well received escpecially in the case of The Shrine). Why some horribly generic poseur rock back should play after a touring US band is beyond me.
Anyway, I was prepared to give Kings of the North a second chance. And I did for about two songs. Interest was lost quite quickly, and the bar was shortly visited. These guys seem to be getting a bit of a reputation, and seem to pick up supports quite easily, but for the life of me I can't see why.
Thankfully they only played for about 25 minutes, and after a short intermission and sound check Red Fang hit the stage not long after 10pm. Red Fang for me are a band that have 3 good albums, though each of them have a quite a bit of filler. The good thing about seeing them play a ~90 minute set, was that most of the filler is left unplayed - the setlist for the most part was excellent! There weren't many dull moments through the show, and while none of them are really outstanding musicians, the performances from each were very solid. As a band they were really into the show, and the crowd was one of the more lively ones I've seen at Fowlers for a while, despite it being well short of a sellout (my guess is the venue was about 3/4 full).
Mid way through the set they played a few new songs for us. Both of them seemed pretty good, though neither really stood out as much as their more well know numbers such as Wires and Prehistoric Dog. However there was one song I didn't recognise played during the encore which if new, was excellent. A much more slower paced song than their more well known tracks. Speaking of their well known stuff, there were plenty of cries of "Nice dress Gandalf" from the crowd, which suggested there were a number here who really only knew one or two Red Fang songs.
Anyway, in summary it was an excellent show. Missing out on the Shrine and to a lesser extent Spacebong was disappointing, but I still felt I got value from the $50 ticket. Looking forward to seeing them again in the future, and hearing how the new album turns out.
Here's a pic!