Live Review: Bad//Dreems, The Creases, Glass Wave

The beer garden may have been jammed but opening to a largely barren room, besides half a dozen people scattered about, relative newcomers Glass Wave had a daunting task on their hands for any emerging band in trying to pull an atmosphere onto the floor.

With their first few tracks going largely unnoticed, despite some decent Violent Soho styled grunge riffs with punk rhythm, they rode out their set with a hardened live shot of Discomposure enough to pull punters to the barrier.

Brisbane's The Creases were in a poor way from the start. The band, noticeably ill, were forced to take extended breaks between tracks and a snapped string led to the hunt for a guitar backstage, somehow, they still pulled off a lively set.

Merging favourites like Static Lines and Impact with their soon to be released LP tracks highlighted the bands progression. Large radio melodies with rousing Britpop choruses, the tasty new cuts previewed what is going to be one of the stellar local albums of 2017.

Sneaking onto the stage under a backdrop of a projected intro video, Bad//Dreems kicked off a puzzlingly lacklustre start with Blood Love, the room anticipating a high impact punch from the Adelaide crew, though they only had to wait until Johnny Irony for the powder keg to finally ignite.

Bad//Dreems tracks are built on meaty choruses, fierce intros and straight up rock'n'roll delivered vocals, but on a live set they work their way into something else again, with the band dragging the crowd to a fever pitch for a full 60 minutes. Drinks were flying across the room almost as often as bodies flying from the stage.

Vocalist Ben Marwe practically revels in the chaos he created, dumping his guitar for a bottle of whisky through Dumb Ideas and frequently pacing the stage like a caged animal. The contagious energy eventually leads to Marwe diving into the crowd during Cuffed & Collared before a stage diver emerged and grabbed the microphone to smash out the chorus, sounding somewhat like Animal from The Muppets, demanding the acts' bottle of Jameson before getting booted from the stage, all to the bands' humour.

The sound is sharp and hard-hitting, their energy is unparalleled and their shows are wildly unpredictable. Bad//Dreems is keeping the classic Australian rock dream alive and well with a trail of destruction left behind, and Badlands now has a first hand experience at what a Bad//Dreems gig can really turn on.