JEBEDIAH, AREA 7, & MACH PELICAN
Fremantle, WA
24 April 2000
by Min

(if you dont know me you might find some bits boring or irrelevant. skip them.)

As people I know who are fans of Area-7, I thought you might appreciate a review of their fremantle gig which I had the immense pleasure of attending.

A detail by detail, scrupulous description...

Got on the bus to Rockingham at 10:21. Then two stops later some horrible teenybopper girls got on. Aughhhh! I nearly slapped one, they are so annoying with their hideous little butterfly clips. Aughhh! I just ignored them because I'm too mature :Þ They started talking about how excited they were because they were "going to their first concert ever!" and I thought "Oh fuck" but it turned out they were going to see Five. *Phew*

Got to Rockingham, changed buses to get to fremantle. This took another hour (this is nearly 2 hours travel we're talking here) and we got into Fremantle at the hour of 12pm. The gig didn't start till one. So we cruised up and down South Terrace (for those of you familiar with 'Himbo' it's Fremantle's Lygon Street) looking at all the wankers and ended up having a mocha for energy at Dome (if you'll excuse the pretension associated with the said beverage.) By the time we had our lunch and got out it was twenty to one, so we went outside of Metropolis were a large (about 50 metres, 5 people wide) queue was forming. So we waited there for about 10 minutes, people spotting. After getting in, we checked our bags into the cloakroom and got a tidy position in the middle of the moshpit.

So after watching the roadies for Mach Pelican for about 20 minutes (we got them instead of the Get Up Kids) they started. And what a crazy bunch of Japanese punksters they are! They'd toned down somewhat since when they lived in Perth a few years ago doing the local punk circuit but they were great. The crowd really got warmed up as soon as "Dance In Chicago" started. They played quite a short set, by the end of which i was front and centre, could see perfectly, and just in time for Area-7.

Area-7, in a phrase, kicked arse. They were so excellent live, much more polished than the times I have seen them before . Their first song was "No Logic" which was opened by a huge resounding shout of 'Fuck Racism!' which I thought was appropriate. I *think* the set list went like this...

No Logic,A known crowd pleaser, this opened their set quite well.
Walk Away
Boys Don't Cry <--- I LOVE this one. SOOOOOOOOoo Glad they played it.
Bitter Words
Skin Deep
Himbo (hurrah!!!!!!!!!)
Second Class Citizen <--- all the teenies loved this one, but didn't like any of the other songs.
Dickheads.
Big Ben
Let Me Down
Sound System <--- Operation Ivy.
Start Making Sense<--- (Dedicated to all of Stevo's ex-gf's because "They never made any fuckin sense to me"!)

And about three others, but I don't know where they fit in. My friend's boyfriend scored the setlist so I'll ask him for the official routine.

I was SO glad they played Sound System, they said they had had a few requests for an Operation Ivy song, and I'm so glad they went there because I love it.

Sorry this is not so detailled but I can't put into words how good it was. It was so excellent.

Jebs were on next and they played a decent set, although they couldn't do better than A7 in my books (I'm a punk/ska girl at heart). The vocals were far too quiet though so you couldn't hear Kev properly, but he's still a cutie :) He didn't have much to say to the crowd though, but that was ok cos Stevo more than made up for that during A7's set.

No one beats Area-7 when it comes to fashion statements, so here you go. (Note that I have probably fucked this up too)

these are the ones I could see...

Stevo: Red "Wrench Devils" shirt
Toby: Blue suit, red tie, fashioned from the same suit that Al was wearing
Al: Red suit, fashioned from the same type of fabric as Toby
Chucky: My other favourite - a red shirt thingy but could not see too well.

Could not see anyone else well enough to observe what they were wearing, also was too busy skanking :Þ Even though there was no room. C'est la vie.

Also special mention to the singer from Mach Pelican whose name I have momentarily forgotten - but he had a Hellacopters shirt on so must be commended :)

Another piece of fashion I managed to pick up was a shirt I bought...had a modelled Superman logo on the front and the back says "it's a bird....
no It's a plane....
no It's Area-7!"

How appropriate, I thought.

HIGHLIGHTS OVERALL

*EVERYBODY COME DANCE IN CHICAGO!
*Area 7 playing an Operation Ivy song :D
*Toby thumbs-upping me, and I'm sure he did because I thumbs-upped him first
*Himbo "We fucking hate wankers" *Kevin Mitchell, he's so cute :P
*Harpoon
*Ferris Wheel
*Chunky Chunky Air Guitar
The whole day was just great. I loved everything about it

Overall the experience was absolutely brilliant to any ska fan. i look fortward to seeing em again with skulker on July 30th. If you ever get the chance to see area-7 do, do do!!!!