Live Music Review – Doom’s Children – The Tivoli, Brisbane.

I haven’t been to see live music in a while and holy shit was it a revelation when I returned.

I have loved Alexisonfire for a long time, from Crisis through to the Switcheroo series with Moneen, it’s all great. Unfortunately, I was out of the country during their 2017 tour of Australia and never got a chance to see them.

So I was naturally going to check out vocalist/rhythm guitarist Dallas Green’s project ‘City and Colour’ when he returned to Australian shores with a little taste of Wade MacNeil (vocals/guitar for AlexisonFire) and Doom’s Children supporting.

Doom’s Children (with Wade fronting) kick off and it’s an absolute killer set, if a little short. Droning riffs, wah and ripping fuzz was the order of the night and Doom’s Children earned plenty of new fans that night (and I dare say on the rest of the tour). Wade is an enigmatic front man, telling stories of old ladies and mis-timed trips, and throws everything into the gig, joking with the crowd and generally putting on a great show.

Set list was:

1. Flower Moon
2. Trip with Me
3. Psych Hospital Blues
4. Skeleton Beach
5. Heavy Year
6. Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead)

Flower Moon and Heavy Year were the standouts for me on the night. Flower Moon firstly for an awesome intro to Doom’s Children but secondly for the guitar work by Wade and Johnny 99, a transcendent experience. Heavy Year for the absolute rawness of emotion – a song about the death of Wade’s mother and the resulting grief.

And that’s what you get with Doom’s Children – absolute raw energy, emotion and lyricism. There’s no added bells and whistles and the music comes straight from the heart, lyrics like the following let us in on the real Wade, as he has discussed elsewhere about writing for Doom’s Children, this is a raw and honest project for him without any sanding of the rough emotional edges.

“My father cried when he dropped me off at rehab” – Psyche Hospital Blues

“Got a few good friends here by my side
They were there last year when I couldn’t see the light” – Flower Moon

If you are looking for some great psychedelic rock then I would highly recommend checking out Doom’s Children on Spotify or wherever you are listening to music.

I’ll be headed to Alexisonfire at the Fortitude Music Hall on Friday so will make sure that I report back on that gig as well.

I’d also highly recommend checking out the musicians touring with Wade (and City and Colour) as they absolutely smashed it out of the park on Monday night and have some great projects that they are also working on – Johnny 99, Matt Kelly, Erik Nielsen and Leon Power

A little story – The line to the Tivoli was around the block by the time we got there, which was all good. So we went for a walk around King Street to kill some time. While walking there is a group of guys waiting for food – one of who I recognise as Wade Macneil from AlexisonFire/Doom’s Children. I was going to ask for a photo but chickened out, my partner thought she was being sly and took a shot from a distance and on later review Wade seems to be staring down the camera – so apologies Wade for creeping on you pre-show.