_{Cover Image: The Drones at The Rechabite. Image by De Williams.}

They’re not country, but they’re certainly western.

Aside from forming in Western Australia, the Drones’ cast of cowboys, outlaws and colonial characters have often had a taste for southern gothic’s dark imagery, Straya-style. 

And frontman Gareth Liddiard doesn’t shy away from Australian-ness in his drawling delivery any more than he does in his lyrics. Born in Port Hedland before cutting his teeth in bands around Hillarys and Duncraig High School, Liddiard’s early days were spent in Perth band Gutterville Splendour Six alongside such wild west luminaries as the Kill Devil Hills.

Liddiard himself would probably call the Drones “punk”. I can imagine him turning his nose up at terms like gothic and even Australiana, but that hasn’t stopped him reviving his most Australian-sounding band after a 10-year hiatus. A productive 10 years, artistically speaking, in which his acclaimed Tropical Fuck Storm (TFS) released four albums including last year’s excellent Fairyland Codex. Maybe that’s why The Drones have never looked or sounded this good.

Saturday night’s show sold out so quickly it inspired a second one on Sunday, and it was a neat trick bringing Sydney two-piece the Mess Hall along in support given they haven’t played together in 10 years either. With a hint of not-too-distant nostalgia in the air they ripped through a set of noughties era classics that peaked with Lock and Load then Keep Walking.

Claiming to be more stripped back than usual due to leaving a few things at the airport in Adelaide (we’ll assume it’s sign of a fun tour), the Mess Hall were as raw and downright funk-infused as ever. 

The Drones had a technical mishap of their own soon after. Liddiard looked at his guitar pedals with disdain, then his beer, murmuring “Alby what… Alby Mangles?” in reference to the Gage Roads lager, ahead of a 10-minute break to fix the false start. If it played as fast and loose as an early Drones recording, the production soon made up for things as a subtle but effective lighting configuration accompanied the loud, duelling guitars of Liddiard and Dan Luscombe.

Kicking off with Private Execution and Taman Shud from most recent album Feelin Kinda Free (2016) they worked their way back in time soon enough. Next came a pair of songs from 2008’s Havilah, with The Minotaur a dynamic tour de force and Luck in Odd Numbers the first of the many slow burn epics that became Saturday’s stock-in-trade. 

Segueing into Sitting on the Edge of the Bed Cryin’ was like an insight into the origins of TFS as Fiona Kitschin’s backing vocals became central to the sound. Baby² followed in another raging dynamic change up, before the road home was paved with highlights, some expected, some less so.

I See Seaweed was nothing short of song-of-the-night, as the lighting and production found a life of its own, in a way we’ve never seen choreographed to this level at a Drones show (at least here in Perth). Following on, Locust was no less epic or visually stunning, so that by the time Shark Fin Blues dropped as the main set’s penultimate song, excitement levels were somewhere close to feverish.  

The very punk rock I Don’t Ever Want to Change ended in a bespoke, doom-laden crescendo, before making way for an encore that not only included a final Drones epic in their own Oz-rock masterpiece Jezebel, but also incorporated the briefest snippet of Dionne Warwick’s That’s What Friends are For. For reals.

It left a towering finale cover of Kev Carmody to close out proceedings, and it’s hard to imagine why anyone in attendance wouldn’t have gone home and listened to River of Tears again that night:

“You’re not safe out there on freedom street
You’re not safe inside the ‘can’
For their shotguns and their stunt gas
They’re licensed to drop you where you stand

… Two hundred years in the river of fear”

It was an effective piece of Australian storytelling, speaking to our country’s long and troubled history with colonisation and indigenous citizens. It’s fair to say Kev Carmody has never looked or sounded like this, but his lyrics stood tall as Liddiard questioned those who are paid and elected to protect us.

It’s punk rock, it’s Aussie, it’s cowboys approaching a dark gothic south node, and the world building is so wild it’s inspired academics to dissect Liddiard’s lyrics, such as in Joseph Cummins’ research paper An Archipelago of Convicts and Outsider: “The rich vein of historical and mythical material in the songs enables an examination of the connections between the past of Australian colonial history and the present of global imperialism.”

Liddiard and Kitschin never went away, of course, and if you’re yet to get there check out last year’s TFS record and work backwards from there. But damn it feels like a good time to welcome the Drones back out west, and damn they were good.