LIVE REVIEW: The Jungle Giants’ Fremantle Extravaganza
They say time flies when you’re having fun, and The Jungle Giants’ Fremantle show seemed to be over just a second after they started. Going off what the guy said behind me as soon as it ended: “Well that was bloody brilliant!”
The night started a with a nice relaxed vibe, helped by Girlname playing chill house tunes as people slowly filtered in. Adi Toohey came on a bit early and was instantly a crowd favourite. Enjoying herself on stage, she was singing and dancing along to her set, getting the ever-growing crowd comfortable and grooving.
By 9pm the dancefloor had filled up and the crowd was chanting Dj Otzi’s ‘Hey Baby’ waiting for the Brisbane supergroup to come out. 9:30pm arrived and The Jungle Giants emerged with copious amounts of energy, fittingly blasting out ‘Quiet Ferocity’ as their opener. Their incredible stage presence was evident from the start, with lead singer Sam Hales gracefully dancing around.
The Fremantle crowd felt like they were welcoming home their biggest stars, singing and dancing along to every song, knowing all the words. The band jumped between songs from their first album, Learn to Exist, and their latest, Quiet Ferocity’, with the audience loving all favourites. ‘She’s a Riot’, ‘Skin to Bone’ and ‘Blinded’ were well appreciated and they only needed to play the opening melody of ‘Feel the Way I Do’ for the crowd to already go crazy.
Sam was the clear star of the show, getting everyone clapping and jumping together, although he couldn’t have done it without the rest of his band. They even performed ‘In the Garage’ from their latest album, solo showcasing the skills of Andrew (bassist) and Keelan (drums).
Being a sold-out show, there was little to no space in Metros. Even at the back of the crowd, you felt as though you were in the middle of the mosh, with people jumping, shoving and grooving around. At some points, it did get a bit too much, especially for those just trying to have a chill time - but I guess the bangers on stage were too irresistible to not go crazy for.
The whole night was packed with high energy and the lighting on the set amazingly conveyed the appropriate mood for each song, with a spotlight even coming on for the “resurrected” lyric of ‘Blinded’.
The band kept banging out hits throughout the night, with ‘Used to be in Love’ getting everyone shouting and dancing along. Of course, their latest single ‘Heavy Hearted’ had new and old fans grooving alike ending the night on a high. After chants of “one more song”, The Jungle Giants came back and delivered two. They encored with a heartfelt ‘You’ve Got Something’, juxtaposed with an upbeat ‘Bad Dream’ to finish the night off.
Saying their final goodbyes, The Jungle Giants honestly looked like they didn’t want to leave the amazing atmosphere - and quite frankly, neither did we. But alas, all good things come to an end, so we left with heavy hearts and quite sore bodies.
