The growl from the stage at the Enmore as the early crowd shuffled in was nothing short of ferocious as abrasive punk lords, C.O.F.F.I.N (Children of Finland Fighting in Norway) warmed up the almost capacity crowd. The Sydney group formed almost 20 years ago and continue to make visceral Australia punk-rock peaking just last year with the brilliant “Australia Stops” album, their fifth, also nominated for an ARIA Award in the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal category.
The drummer lead singer, Ben Portnoy, spits into the mic song after song whilst belting the skins with rough abandon. There’s nothing demure about this band, and the pure rock riffs and bristling rhythms reflect a maturity of sound that has been built up over years of performing around Australia and the world.
The crowd were sufficiently warm as the power-driven and well-sized set included a blues interlude with Cyrus Pilko (of Papa Pilko and the Bin Rats fame) blasting away on the mouth organ and a didgeridoo player for good measure. You may not know what to expect from each song, but you’re certain to smash your head up and down.
Viagra Boys are nearly ten years old as a Swedish punk rock band, and despite some personnel changes over the years (one after the sad death of their founding guitarist, Benjamin Vallé), they have released three albums and three EPs of dance-post-punk revelry to an adoring core of fans. Whilst their band name fits incongruously with the style of music, it points to the tongue in cheek attitude of the band, and in particularly from lead singer, Sebastian Murphy.
“I was at the Duke and someone bought me some shots,” declares Murphy as he obviously looks pre-warmed up for their set. “It’s been five years since we’ve been here and back then I was just playing in a corner for one dude.” Fast forward to 2024 and despite being forced to changed their Australia plans after the cancellation of Splendour in the Grass, the band have a sold-out Enmore and people screaming out the lyrics and moshing with abandon.
The band play a brand of bass-driven punk that you can dance to and judging by the range of genders and ages in the crowd, they have surely struck a chord with the Sydney audience for that reason. Dance punk is a thing!
Second track, “Slow Learner” from their “Street Worms” record is a pulsing track and really set the scene for the night and it really didn’t slow down from there
“Troglodyte”, from their 2022 album, “Cave World” was a big highlight for the throbbing bass and the discordant saxophone, played by Oskar Carls, which would punctuate tracks over the set. Its drone pushed this version to close to 8 minutes or more moulding the crowd into an hypnotic state.
“Do you like dogs?” asked Murphy at one point before diving into the growling “Secret Canine Agent”, one of the shorter songs of the set. For a band with a punk-rock ethos, they certainly knew how to make their songs extend. The last three in the main set, “Bog Body”, “Sports” and “Research Chemicals” went large, including a spontaneous circle pit, many stage divers (including keyboardist Elias Jungqvist) and general mayhem.
Again, the final song felt like it went a good 10 minutes, the energy well and truly pushing everyone to the edge.
Suitable, after a short break, the final track from “Cave World”, “Return to Monke”, rounded out the night. It was a set that would have easily maintained their hard-core fans and brought on board anyone that was curious.
Tight, frenetic and urgent, Viagra Boys feel like they’re on the up and up…
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Viagra Boys’ Australian tour has just ended – all its details can be found HERE. Photo by Pete Dovgan.
