Live Review + Gallery | Psychedelic Porn Crumpets @ Factory Theatre, Sydney

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets return to the East Coast of Australia to prove they’re still the kings of psychedelic rock with a setlist that takes on the best of their repertoire.

Perth’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets named themselves after a late-night university brainstorming session. The goal was to come up with something odd, something memorable, and something that really stood out. Those three terms are exactly how I’d describe their live show at Sydney’s Factory Theatre.

PPC are known for their modern psychedelic rock sound, with raw, fuzzy guitars blazing their way through experimental tempo shifts and intricate tonal layering. It’s a sound they’ve crafted over eight albums in the past ten years, and while they’ve been compared to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Tame Impala and Pond, PPC have formed their own offering that’s truly unique to them.

It was a warm, hazy Sydney sunset when The Lazy Eyes took to the stage to open the night. The crowd began to pack out the room, which I can only describe to our UK readers as a Spoons with all the tables taken out. It even featured a carpet and a step in the middle of the floor, something that would later come into play in the middle of the mosh pit.

The four-piece Sydney locals, and their live renditions of ‘Fuzz Jam’ and ‘Where’s My Brain???’, were the perfect ’60s-style psychedelic warm-up for the crowd. Wah-wah pedals screamed fuzzed-out tones as the band jammed away on stage. At one point, lead singer Harvey Geraghty jumped off stage, directly onto the barrier, leaning back on the crowd while shredding out.

Fans of The Lazy Eyes should keep an ear out for their upcoming album ‘Cheesy Love Songs’, coming this August.

At 9:10, it was time for Psychedelic Porn Crumpets to step up. Walking out to a burst of screams from fans dripping in an array of merch, the band went straight into ‘Salsa Verde’ before ‘Manny’s Ready To Roll’.

Both tracks, from last year’s ‘Pogo Rodeo’ record, are thrashy, blood-pumping tunes. The crowd went wild, whirring the mosh into action as the circle pit opened up. The front row belted out The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ sample, “He wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football”, with a ferocity Lennon/McCartney would never have planned for.

The entire PPC catalogue was on show. Fan favourites ‘Surf’s Up’, ‘Mundungus’, and ‘Lava Lamp Pisco’ all made an appearance before the band kicked into the iconic ‘Found God in a Tomato’ riff. Lead singer Jack McEwan’s impressive vocal range is on full display here as the band work through the near nine-minute epic, drifting from delicate, whispered vocals to full, strained, echoing screams.

Lights strobed above, hues of purple and orange glowing over the swinging pits below. Every now and then, a member of the mosh would spill out to the back of the room, absolutely drenched in sweat, only to hear ‘Hot! Heat! Wow! Hot!’ or ‘Hymn for a Droid’ and pile straight back into the frenzy.

After working through a mammoth eighteen-song setlist, we found ourselves at ‘Cornflake’, a track that firmly placed PPC as one of the most exciting Australian bands back in 2016. The song is electrifying live. The band teetered on the edge of total chaos, the hard-driven riff vibrating through every bone in my body. The lights pounded as the final chorus sent the crowd into a collapsing mass of bodies and screams.

PPC rang out a final note before giving a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone in attendance.

This was my first gig in Australia, having recently moved here from London, and for me, it was the perfect litmus test. Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are a ferocious, relentless live act, and their fans are one of the loosest crowds I’ve ever experienced. I dare anyone to listen through their back catalogue and not want to get stuck into a pit.