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At a sold-out Collins Barracks, the Melbourne band put on a magisterial display throughout a stunning set
Amyl and the Sniffers in Dublin review: Supersized riffs, stomping choruses and a tribute to Dolly Parton At a sold-out Collins Barracks, the Melbourne band put on a magisterial display throughout a stunning setBigger is always better when it comes to the punk sensations Amyl and the Sniffers, who arrive at Collins Barracks sporting supersized riffs, vast mullets and romping, stomping choruses.
A product of the rough-and-ready Melbourne pub-rock scene, the group take their name from the drug amyl nitrite: “You sniff it, it lasts for 30 seconds and then you have a headache,” Amy Taylor, the band’s singer, once explained.
“That’s what we’re like. ” But there’s nothing chemically enhanced about their music, an explosive barrage of punk-pop that slam-dances into the ghosts of rock’n’roll past. They wear their influences openly. Chugging guitars owe a lot to AC/DC.
Taylor, in a white jumpsuit that makes her look like a headbanging bride who has absconded from her own wedding, leaps around in a style that suggests the second coming of Iggy Pop. Dolly Parton’s last act was to briefly silence America’s toxic political discourseArtists pay tribute to Dolly Parton, with Donald Trump ordering flag to be lowered in US The special ingredient the band adds is a searing desire to break down the barrier between performer and audience and make everyone feel as one.
That’s a difficult trick to pull off at the best of times, but on a rainy night in Dublin – a downpour threatens but never arrives – it demands a magisterial display, and that’s what Amyl and the Sniffers deliver throughout their stunning set. It’s that human touch – tenderness amid the maelstrom – that connects as forcefully as the seismic heft of the music.
“Let’s f**king goooo,” Taylor proclaims as they kick off the incendiary gig with Control, a prowling, growling bulldozer of a tune that showcases her pell-mell stage presence even as the lyrics talk about the challenge of allowing yourself to feel vulnerable in a relationship – a tender insight encased within a track that lumbers like a first World War tank. Their sheer screaming power is something to behold.
It’s enough to keep at bay the suspicion that, were they any less disciplined or emotionally honest, the quartet could come across as a cartoonish hotchpotch of rock cliches. It’s an emotional evening for the musicians, who grew up on country music and are understandably saddened by the evening’s news.
“My heart is broken because we lost Dolly Parton,” Taylor says, fighting back tears hours after it’s announced that the star has died, at the age of 80. “For me, Dolly Parton was everything. She represented what was good in the world. She cared about other people, who took the time to accept other people.
She a big, loud feminist during a time when that wasn’t welcome. ” They pay tribute to Parton with Big Dreams. Taylor points out that Parton’s kindness and open-mindedness stand in contrast to many powerful figures today.
“There’s so much hate, and it’s usually generated from some f**king tech bro”, she says. Later she speaks out on behalf of immigrants.
“There’s all this hype around trying to hate on immigrants ... Immigration makes a country great. Don’t blame them. Blame your government,” she says.
This is greeted with applause from the sold-out audience. There are further cheers as Amyl and the Sniffers close with the body-slamming GFY. This onslaught of proto-metal gives 1970s punk rock a Gen Z makeover and doubles as a reminder of the unifying power of rock music played with maximum aggression and fuelled by a ferocious hunger to make the world a better place. Dolly Parton would surely have approved.
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