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Last night, I hit the town.

I went to see the Brisbane Broncos beat up on the South Sydney Rabbitohs, to the tune of 30 - 12. To be honest, the Broncos looked like they were slacking off for long periods of the game, but that sadly highlights just how lousy the Rabbitohs are right now - I mean they stink! One piece of bad news for Brisbane is that Michael Ennis is likely to miss the rest of the season because of a knee injury he suffered in this match.

After that, we headed off to see Sydney band Faker play a bunch of songs, mostly from their new album Addicted Romantic. But before they hit the stage, we got to see a bunch of other bands.

The first band was an all-girl three piece, who I think were called the Fondelles (can anyone confirm this?). I really liked them - they had some great harmonies over sixties garage rock inspired tunes. I’d go see them again - I think they were from Brisbane (can anyone confirm this - in fact can anyone tell me anything about them, because I really don’t know anything about them!).

The next band was the Valentinos, who were brilliant one minute, then annoyingly indulgent the next. I mean, any guitar hack can make their axe sound like an F1-11. Hopefully they’ll work out it is a fine line between putting on a great show and playing like a bunch of wankers. But I think they were just trying to get into the reckless enjoyment and anarchy that rock ‘n’ roll can be, so I can’t fault them too much. A big hurrah must go to their drummer. This guy is seriously one of the best drummers I’ve ever seen. He kicked butt, and added so much energy to their music, but importantly so much of the bands structure. He is the real deal.

Van She was the next band on. For the first half of their set the only thing I was impressed with was the Joy Division/Unknown Pleasures t-shirt the singer/guitarist was wearing. Cool shirt indeed, but they were struggling to keep my interest. However, they must have been leaving their better songs to the end, and I was actually starting to get into them by the time they finished up. I am kind of reluctant to draw comparisons between new and upcoming bands and better known bands, but I would guess that the Joy Division influence goes beyond their choice of t-shirts. I sensed a fair bit of New Order (they were a bit more upbeat than Joy Division) and Depeche Mode in there also.

Faker hit the stage, and straight away I could sense that frontman Nathan Hudson was a born entertainer. He had every set of eyeballs in the place on him, and he really showed that he is more than just a singer - he drives the band and commands the crowd. The rest of the band were pretty impressive. Nothing stood out in terms of individual talent, but they are obviously damn good at what they do, and they were locked together all night. I thoroughly recommend this band to anyone who appreciates melodic rock music. Nothing too fancy here, but it is as catchy as herpes and apparently a whole lot more fun.