By Suze Peak

We arrive at The Clubhouse, situated at the old Empire Corner Bar in Brisbane’s buzzing Fortitude Valley it’s a great venue, very dimly lit with a bar that seems bigger than the actual gigging room.

Support band Cabins were about to come on, so we grabbed our drinks and made our way to the stage.

The Scare front man Kiss Reid & bassist Wade Keighran are down the front waiting for Cabins to come on.

Cabins announce themselves “we’re Cabins” and Keighran lets out “fuck yeah you are”. It’s great to see Aussie bands showing their support & admiration for each other. Cabins’ sound is slightly gritty & deep but very clean. Cabins live, in a word, rock!
Next came Jack Ladder,  the stage name of Sydney boy (the other) Tim Rodgers and his rotating band (sans drummer but avec drum machine).

Jack Ladder have this sultry sound to them mostly generated by Rodgers deep voice & the gyrating hip swinging movement of the guitarist.

The Scare take to the stage.

Reid plays the entire set shirtless & I cant help but think the reason for this is because previous shows on this tour – his shirt has been ripped off by the crowd!

They open the set with ‘Bats!’ Followed by ‘I’m Desperate’. Around here somewhere is where my lady friend and I almost got punched out by a crazed Scare fan.

This tall-dude with a long fringe & extreme skinny pants was very territorial about his spot, especially with leg cocked up and one foot up on stage, he may as well have urinated on the band to mark them as his!

The Scare ripped through ‘Surgeon’ followed by ‘No Money’ with its sing-a-long anthem chorus. The band has this great post punk/dirty garage rock sound with these fist pumping choruses with enough pop sensibility to have you dancing along & with their stuck in your head for days!

Next came ‘As He Walks’. Slow & sexy with undertones of a Nick Cave-esque sound. ‘Destruction’ and ‘Cyber Love’. follow and Reid makes his famous entry into the crowd. He jumps in, crowd surfing until he gets dropped A pile of fans jump on top of him & before he knows it he is buried. He thrashes around dancing and singing & ends up laying on the floor, again.

Next comes ‘She Cant Say No’. Reid up on the drum kit, facing the drummer, shaking his ass to the crowd.

Next, the first few chords of ‘Cold Be Bad’ the tune is so groovy and kiss gets a great tone from his voice here tonight, could be from the touring that’s warn his voice to this husky tone. Finally, comes ‘Cry’ and once again kiss is in the crowd.

The Scare are not afraid of the cow bell or shaking those maracas and you can’t understand how dynamic this band is live, until you see them in a small venue like that getting down right dirty.

The night wore on with DJing by brisbane thrash punk duo DZ and shot after shot at the bar. As our sweat dried, The Scare made thier way out of the venue. But I got their set list.