Fuel & Automatic
Dapto Leagues Club, Melbourne, 12 November 1999
by Daniel Bogema

This concert was altogether a bit of a mystery to me because it was not advertised on either the triple j or channel [v] websites, in fact the only way I heard about it was from the TV. The concert was brought to Wollongong by the infamous i98 fm (a horrible radio station which has been playing "Shimmer" to death recently) and we arrived at Dapto Leagues Club at around 7:30pm. The concert didn't begin until 8:30 so after a bit of a wait the first (and only) support act, Automatic, began playing. Automatic are not my favourite band in the world, but they played well and even thanked the only guy who stayed on the floor for the whole set. It was about halfway though the Automatic set that I realised that there was no crowd barrier.

About 40 minutes after Automatic finished Fuel came on stage, welcomed by many "i98 fans" screaming their lungs out. They started with "Untitled", the first song off "Sunburn". I rushed to the moshpitt and pushed my way though to the prime position of centre front row, right in front of Brett (lead singer). There was still no crowd barrier, which lead to interesting events later in the night. Fuel played brilliantly, after the opening brilliance of "Untitled" they played "Mary Pretends" and then dazzled the crowd with their new single "Bittersweet". Fuel then moved into a more mellow vibe by playing "Sunburn" and a few other songs off their debut L.P. including "Ozone" and a new song called "Slow Song", which even the i98 crowd seemed to enjoy.

Fuel rocked the crowd with "New Thing" and then fooled around a bit with Brett playing the starting guitar riffs to "Smells like Teen Sprit" and in a tribute to Aussie rock played the opening riffs to 3 AC/DC songs. With a segway that went "Hey, here's a song you might know....", Fuel played the song that the crowd had been waiting for, "Shimmer". Although this song, since it's release about a year ago, has been played to death on triple j and commercial stations it still remains one off my favourite songs and hearing it live made my night. After "Shimmer" was played the crowd surfing began and a few people realised that if they crowd surfed they would be thrown up on stage. So for the last three songs played many crowd members jumped up on stage danced for a bit and then were pushed off by a roadie, Fuel didn't seem to care though. Faster versions of "Song for You" and "It's Come to This" were played much to my enjoyment. "Hideaway" was played as the last song and Fuel went offstage for a brief period before the encore.

When they returned, Carl (lead guitarist) had some how gotten a pair of panties on the end of his guitar, much to the amusement of the other band members and the crowd. After a good laugh, Fuel played their only encore and last song, "Jesus or a Gun" the song went off, with Brett deciding to wear the "guitar panties" on his head for the last half of it. Over all it was a great night and well worth the money I paid. Oh yeah and if someone has the phone number of the girl who decided to make out with Brett during "Jesus or a Gun" could they email it to me.......