The Small Ballroom, October 9
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WHEN The Griswolds took to the stage, the show was always going to get a little crazy.
But no one in the crowd could predict how quickly bedlam would descend on the Small Ballroom last Thursday.
The Sydney indie quartet were barely 30 seconds into their penultimate song, latest single Beware the Dog, when a few enthusiastic members of the crowd climbed the short distance onstage and started to dance.
They were then followed by almost everyone.
The only band members still visible, a grinning Daniel Duque-Perez and Christopher Whitehall, continued playing guitar and singing without missing a beat as the crowd danced, took selfies, hugged them from behind, jumped on their backs or stroked their hair.
It was hard not to sing along to the utterly infectious chorus: ‘‘ ... and now you’re f---ing crazy’’ as all rules went out the window and more of the audience was onstage than at ground level.
Then, subverting all expectations of mob mentality, the interlopers politely shuffled offstage and remained there until Whitehall introduced the final song, the iconic Heart of a Lion, and grabbed people from the front row by the hand, inviting them back onstage.
The party mood that capped off the set didn’t come from nowhere. Starting with Right on Track and spanning Aurora Borealis, EP favourite Mississippi, Be Impressive and a cover of Vance Joy’s Riptide, the crowd was amped up enough to climb on each others’ shoulders and sing in the direction of Whitehall’s proffered microphone even a quarter of the way into the set.
Perhaps a taste of things to come, during If You Wanna Stay a random crowd member with a tiny video camera jumped onto the stage, ran around and jumped off into the crowd, where he was obligingly held aloft until he surfed to the back of the room.
After cruising through Live This Nightmare and America, Whitehall declared Newcastle had put on the ‘‘best f---ing show’’ – one that got even better moments later in the opening strain of Beware The Dog.
When the crowd filtered offstage a second and final time, a lone security guard finally appeared to gently usher stragglers away from the band and call last drinks.