Four years ago, Violent Soho graced the Fortitude Valley Music Hall for one last time before going on an indefinite hiatus. At the time, it was an almost surreal prospect for me and indeed a lot of other people. For seventeen years, they’d been through hell and high water to get to the very top of the Australian scene while juggling full time work and family life. Now that they’d quit their jobs and were consistently selling out shows in minutes, it felt like they’d be around forever.
I wondered to myself at the time how we’d get around without them. It seems strange to say it when talking about a band that has always been very dedicated to not being super polished or pop, but they probably had the most mass appeal that I’ve ever seen from a band like that in modern Australia.
During the last show, I was helping DZ Deathrays film the music video for Paranoid so I was too busy causing chaos to really process it all until afterwards. I’ll always remember leaving the Fortitude Valley Music Hall and sitting at Greaser Bar for a while, thinking back to their extended outro for OK Cathedral, which had such this incredibly haunting yet wistful quality to it, and thinking to myself: Damn, where do we go from here?
Well I can’t exactly say that there was much good news for Australian music afterwards. Since 2022, the industry has floundered so if there was a time to take a break, that was it. But as much as all good things must come to an end, there’s no one that any more loves more than a comeback kid.
Just over four years to the day that they last stepped onto stage at the Fortitude Valley Music Hall, Violent Soho returned for two sold-out shows to a ravenous crowd. I can’t actually say that this was the first time they’d returned to Brisbane however, because they’d just played the Mansfield Tavern as a warm-up for the tour. But their return to the Fortitude Hall made it feel like they’d brought a much needed levle of energy back to Fortitude Valley, which is in sore need of a pick me up.
Teenage Joans
Starting out the night were Adelaide, punk rock two-piece Teenage Joans. I remember when they actually lived up to the band name but they’ve been doing this for like eight or nine years now, so now they’re both well grown up. It’s been great to see the growth over that time as they’ve risen up from their local scene to share the stage yet again with Brisbane’s grunge rock titans.
Much like a lot of their songs, the set they played was short, sweet, and full of grunt. They started out by Coming Up From Hell, their latest single, which was like sculling a coffee shot to start out the night. They then ripped through a motley of their latest singles like Bandits and My Heart’s Dead as well as some of their album tracks like Candy Apple and 5 Things I Can Taste.
They threw in Wine from the old days as well, which was a nice touch. Luke Henery is typically the most energetic performer on any bill, but I think their frontwoman Cahli might actually have him beat. She is an absolute ball of energy on stage, staying semi-still only long enough to sing the lyrics before leaping up off the ground and thrashing her hair about with wild abandon. On a big stage like that, she was basically running over to their drummer Tahlia on the other side to jam out, before sprinting back just in time for the next verse.
Beddy Rays
Keeping the vibes high were our good mates Beddy Rays, who have already had a pretty massive year of festivals and headline shows. Beddy’s sets nowadays are all killer, no filler, serving up a mixed bag of all the hits. Starting out straight out of the gate with Wait a While, they immediately had the crowd moving and grooving. After that, it was banger after banger, blitzing through Hold On, On My Own, and Better Weather.
It might just be the structure of the song but Better Weather has not failed to get a mosh starting since it dropped and that night was no different. Blokes were absolutely thrashing each other, it looked more rough at some points than even Soho, but the energy was good and the crowd were looking after each other from what I could see.
They slowed it down afterwards with Morning Light, taking the chance to chill everyone out a bit, but then ramped things up again with a medley of a few Australian classics including Highway to Hell. This will definitely date this review but a few weeks earlier, One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson made some highly offensive comments about Indigenous Australians.
Beddy Rays were rather obviously not impressed by these, least not their frontman Jacko, who cried “Fuck Pauline Hanson!” as they launched right into their next cover of Better in Blak by Thelma Plum, a song which is all about being Indigenous and proud.
Whether you know Beddy Rays or not, they have a way of ensuring that you’ll be singing along to them at some point. Their other Like a Version cover of Khe Sanh by Cold Chisel of course brought the entire crowd together but I have to say that Sobercoaster had just as many people there who knew all the words. With how fast they’re rising, I think that might be the Beddy Rays track that goes platinum one day very soon. Finishing up their set with the all too relatable Week on Repeat, the Beddy’s left the energy very high for the headliners, which is exactly what you want.
Violent Soho
As the stage curtain was hoisted up, you could definitely observe a hush fall over the room. Four years ago, quite a few people were standing right here to see them play for what was then the final time. So being there again was a full circle moment. But there were also plenty of people there seeing them for the very first time. People had travelled all the way from the US and Scotland (Shoutout to Andrew Summers!) to be there that night. For them, this was the start of something great.
And indeed it was. You could tell that there were some nerves for their literal first show back at Mansfield Tavern, but with a whole tour now under their belts, the Violent Soho boys were absolutely on fire. The moment they launched into the first few notes of How To Taste, it was like they’d never left the Fortitude Hall. Hearing the intro to Vacation Forever will always remind me of when it was a brand new track and I charged straight into the pit during Good Things just as the song hit “I just wanna be free!”.
Following that up were my two favourite tracks, Lying On The Floor and Blanket. These were the standouts on their respective albums for me, so we’d be here forever if I talked about how great it’s been to see them become a mainstay of their sets.
Viceroy and In The Aisle of course got the crowd absolutely going. The Viceroy bass line I could listen to for hours and that opening riff for In The Aisle always parts the crowd like the Red Sea for the old wall of death when the scream hits. Luke Henery in particular was in his element by this point. I got to work with him a bit when he joined DZ Deathrays and you could tell that he was super hungry to be back on stage. So seeing him up there with Violent Soho again still whipping his hair around just felt so right.
They slowed things down with Canada and then followed it up with OK Cathedral, which may be one of the best songs they’ve ever written (aside from Slow Down Sonic of course, which they are still yet to play live). The outro this time was divine just like the last time I heard it at the Fortitude Hall. But instead of closing things out, it instead gave the crowd a well needed opportunity to catch our breath and bask in the glory of their return.
Kamikaze was always a song that had particularly ominous overtones for me as the final track they dropped before the hiatus. There is a pessimism and angst to the lyrics that made it very fitting for the occasion when they played it at the “final” show. This time however, it sounded almost triumphant as they powered into the final chorus. It’s funny how certain songs tend to take on new meaning for you with the passing of time.
While there were no Fur Eyes, we did get to hear what Saramona Said and get So Sentimental. They have been playing a few more of the slow burners on this tour and I’m glad for it, because there’s way more to Soho than just the thrashers.
There’s something about Boerdam’s songwriting and lyricism that creates a particular sense of melancholy and yearning for a place and a time somehow in the past yet also in the future. It’s long gone but it’s also somewhere that you’re also yet to reach. It’ just frustrignly not there.
I think this is a large part of why these songs have stayed for so long in the minds of the fans. There is a universally relatable dimension to the grass being greener on the other side. And it’s not even the lyrics themselves that evoke this, it’s the entire atmosphere of the song, all these little parts working together to create something that burns itself into your mind and makes your heart ache.
I believe it was around this time that James made a speech about how they don’t take the support they still have from the fans for granted. Well we sure as hell don’t take their reunion for granted either. I think most Violent Soho fans know that having a career as an Australian artist can be a fickle thing.
We’re not a big country, the band don’t tour overseas a lot, and they have busy family lives. So being able to put something on like this is quite the investment in mind, body, and soul. Touring nowadays isn’t exactly cheap either, no not even when you’ve sold out the whole thing in two days.
I think Luke Henery also had something to add about how he was glad that we were all giving a bunch of old dudes a chance, hoping that they weren’t too slow at their age. I can assure him that the past four years have not sullied them at all. Once again, it felt as if they’d never left once the set really got underway.
A quick aside, but this is the only comment I will make about the line-up change because quite few people have asked me. Hardy is a good mate of mine and I can’t imagine anyone who deserves to be part of this new chapter of Violent Soho any more than him.
Closing out the set, it was time to go for gold with the trifecta of Like Soda, Jesus Stole My Girlfriend, and of course Covered In Chrome. It’s hard to make everyone happy when you’ve got so many great songs, but this was definitely a good run of songs officially end the night on. You basically haven’t lived until you’ve raged to Covered in Chrome.
But of course, they weren’t done yet. It’s no secret that Australian crowds love an encore, so they saved the best for last. Dope Calypso was the first Soho song that I ever listened to and hearing it live always takes me back to a time when I was comparatively younger and going to school in the old 4122 myself. The past eleven years since have been a ride but at least my love for this band hasn’t changed.
Their actual final song of the night was Tinderbox, an all too appropriate choice for a finale because it practically set the crowd ablaze. The remaining shirtless, sweaty mosh pit syndicate really gave the last of their grunt for this one.
Leaving the Fortitude Hall, and seeing the mass of people pour out onto the street was just good to fucking see. The night life here has been in need of a shot of adrenaline lately. With the band that made it all happen finally back on top, I’m hoping that will inspire everyone else to get back amongst it too. Violent Soho exemplifies what it’s like to do music on your own terms and how success in music is all about being able to just keep on doing it.
Everything that the industry judges success in music against like fucking streaming numbers or monthly listens, I believe, is a rather poor metric. It’s the people who show up and keep on showing up time and time again to see you that really make your band last and Violent Soho have that in spades. What else can I really say aside from 4122 forever!
Shoutout to Lachlan Neil (@lachie.neil) for all the sick shots in this article, hit him up for all your music photography needs!
