After missing these guys on their home turf in Melbourne, I was excited to finally get to see The Chats again after a few years. I get to see them again next week, but that’s besides the point.
The show was at a new venue across state lines, but it was a nice place even though it seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere. It was a bit bigger than the last place I saw them at, too, but I had no doubts that they’d fill it up. In fact, it was pretty well full by the time the first opener, Paint Fumes, took the stage. These guys were the most random bunch of people I may have ever seen in a band, but they sounded pretty good together. I almost wonder if they would have sounded even better had the lead singer’s vocals not been shot from the last few days of touring. The next opener to hit the stage were Dirty Fences and they were even better! I was actually really pleasantly surprised by these guys. Most of the songs were super catchy and I could have watched their drummer pulling faces all day. He was hilarious! I highly recommend checking out their song, “Colleen.”
Set-up for The Chats took actually much longer than I would have suspected given that they didn’t even change out the drum set, but either way, they started right at the stroke of 9 PM and didn’t stop for 55 minutes. I know that seems like an insanely short set, but they punched through about 16 songs. It’s not their fault that they can achieve perfection in well under three minutes a piece. At least this time I was expecting the quick set. I remember the first time I saw them, I knew all the songs were short, but I didn’t ever expect them to play less than an hour. That’s honestly insanely impressive that they can sell out shows and play for that brief a time. Now, given how Eamon sings, I don’t know that going any longer night after night would prove well for his vocal chords either.
All in all, there were a lot of great hits on the set list. I think they’d be fools to ever skip the song that made them, “Smoko,” and they didn’t. Other classics that made the cut were “Heatstroke,” “Drunk N Disorderly,” and “Pub Feed.” The latter was the closing song of the evening and it for sure got the most crowd participation, though there was moshing non-stop the whole time they were on stage. They did play a lot of tracks from their latest record, which I don’t think they did much proper touring in the States for, so it was cool hearing “Struck by Lightening” and “Ticket Inspector” live for the first time. “Panic Attack” and “6L GTR” were big hits with the crowd, as well. Speaking of the crowd again, they were pretty rowdy with the moshing and crowd surfing. So much so that even Eamon was basically like “cool it a little.”
All in all, it was a super fun show and I was very happy to get the chance to watch these guys again. I’ll be even happier seeing them for a second time next week! Could have been a three-peat, but I’ll settle for two.
