@Newcastle O2 Academy, April 10th 2016
Wolfmother have gone through a number of line-up changes since they burst onto the scene back in 2000 but you’d be forgiven for thinking the current group had been playing together for a decade.
Andrew Stockdale is the unquestionable leader of the band but bassist Ian Peres and drummer Alex Carapetis are not relegated to the fringes of the show. Far from it.
Wolfmother are a glorious throwback to the Zeppelin days and the band sports a collective hairstyle that would make the most nostalgic hippy green with envy. Stockdale, too, has the skill and energy to fit alongside the legends of 80s and not look out of place.
The current tour may have been billed as a support of the new RUSHONROCK Rated 10/10 album Victorious but the show was anything but an extended marketing event.
Fans old and new would have been delighted with a set list that included all the best hits from their past – and only the stone cold modern rock classics from the present.
The best tunes are always simple but that’s not always the case with gigs. For Wolfmother, though, it serves as a living, rocking reminder that sometimes great music perfectly executed can say more than a hundred lines of banter exchanged with the audience.
Stockdale doesn’t talk a great deal through the 90-minute set but his guitar (which was frequently changed) says a thousand words. He’s a master of the axe and the crowd was treated to a night of some of the finest modern rock music on the circuit today.
Songs like Apple Tree were enthusiasticly thrown into the set early after the opener Victorious – much to the delight of the Geordie faithful.
Outstanding tunes like Woman and California Queen were included in the set, often with lengthy improvised guitar solos courtesy of the frontman.
The final song of the night was the glorious Joker And The Thief. As an encore it was the obvious choice and the only way to end a night that was a homage to big hair and straight up rock and roll.