Jebediah – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne. May 5, 2011.
Review by Emily Smith
It is always slightly awkward when a band comes back from hiatus.
Exhibit A, Perth rock band, Jebediah.
On one hand, you’re delirious with joy, whipping out the old albums and, in this case, dodgy 1990s clothes, dreaming wistfully of that time when you were 17 and young and full of life and a strong desire to marry Vanessa Thompson or (swoon) Kevin Mitchell and live together forever and ever in a lovely, hazy Western Australian alternative rock bliss.
But then, always, there’s that thing, that little niggling anxiety that forces you to wonder whether it will really ever be the same between you two.
John Farnham diehards have had to live through this an inhumane amount of times and the entire world was nervous when Led Zeppelin reconvened briefly in 2007 and that was only for one show.
Early on in the gig, Kevin Mitchell got all misty eyed with fog of nostalgia, alerting the adoring fans that it had been 11 years since they had last played at The Corner, probably, we all thought, to exactly the same crowd.
2000 was arguably the golden era of Jebediah’s popularity and musical acclaim, and for all the people in their ‘spectacularly vintage’ Jebediah band t-shirts from around this time, the new album, ‘Kosciuszko’ – their first after their return – was always going to be a slightly touchy point.
Amidst all the classics like ‘Leaving Home’ (1997), ‘Jerks of Attention’ (1996) and ‘Fall Down’ (2001), the tentative call of ‘Uh, so we’re going to do something from our new album now,’ was met with a universal preemptive cringe.
This does not denote that their new material is horrible, in fact, when Jebediah ripped into ‘Lost My Nerve’ and ‘She’s Like a Comet’, everyone cheered crazily, resumed their ‘90s selves and jumped around like they’d forgotten their comparatively advanced age.
It was just that, unavoidably, for a split second, everyone was frightened that Jebediah would ruin themselves.
Despite this sporadic uncertainty however, Jebediah knew how to work the room.
Validating their numerous WAMi Awards for their blistering live shows, every single person on that stage went crazy, prompting everyone else to lose it as well.
The show, that was only meant to last for an hour, ended up spiraling into a massive 100 minute set, and, although, just 50 minutes in, the mad hoarse lady next to us began to scream ‘HARPOOOOOOOOOOON!’ in between every song, Jebediah refused to play it until we were practically begging.
Once they did, and everyone raised their fake lighters to the ceiling, the transformation was complete.
All of a sudden, though I began as an 18 year old squished in by hoards of 30 somethings, it was 1998, and I was wondering why I was allowed in the establishment, being apparently six years old and all.
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