YOU could actually smell the sweat at the Bar On The Hill on Friday night. It wasn't pretty, but this was rock'n'roll - pure and simple. Untamed, ferocious and exhilarating.
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Brisbane thrash-garage band DZ Deathrays might have only drawn a half-filled room to the University of Newcastle, but those in attendance were active participants.
From the opening riff of Total Meltdown the middle of the room splintered into a giant circle pit, where mostly young men, thrashed and crashed into each other.
As the night progressed, more and more punters emerged from the heaving humanity red-faced and t-shirts soaked in sweat seeking the cool, fresh air of the Bar On The Hill verandah.
The evening opened sedately with Sydney all-girl indie-punk band The Buoys, before they were followed by rising Canberra grunge-pop four-piece Moaning Lisa, who feature three female members.
Sadly Moaning Lisa's support of DZ Deathrays on their national tour has been tarnished by allegations of misogynistic and disrespectful behaviour directed at them by fans.
It led to DZ Deathrays last week calling out the behaviour.
"There has been a number of instances where men have been disrespectful to our support act, Moaning Lisa, and this is absolutely not on," the band posted on social media.
Thankfully there were no obvious examples of disrespect shown to Moaning Lisa in Newcastle.
Comparisons can obviously be made to American '90s band Veruca Salt, due to dual-frontwomen Hayley Manwaring and Charlotte Versegi's harmonies and their penchant for fuzzed-out grunge and shoe gaze guitar.
Manwaring and Versegi shared the lead vocals, and even swapped rhythm and bass guitars throughout the set as they ripped through tracks like the tension-filled Comfortable and more poppy Carrie (I Want A Girl), which Manwaring introduced by calling all the "beautiful queer people to come down the front."
While the audience patiently listened to Moaning Lisa, they exploded for DZ Deathrays.
It's been a year since Shane Parsons (guitar/vocals), Simon Ridley (drums) and Lachlan Ewbank (guitar) released their third album Bloody Lovely.
The album's finest cuts Shred The Summer, Feeling Good, Feeling Great and Like People received the biggest reactions of the night.
There's no second gear with DZ Deathrays. It's just a full throttle assault of riff-heavy distorted garage punk, punctuated with Parsons' frequent high-pitched shrieks.
Some greater diversity would take their performance to another level, but the crowd didn't appear to mind.
However, at times you wondered if half the audience was actually listening as their sweaty bodies bounced off each other inside the circle pit and a giant slice of inflatable pizza was tossed about.
The hour-long encore-free set concluded with the frenetic Gina Works At Hearts as the crowd belted out the chorus of "Gina works at Hearts, but she doesn't know/Why she does it though/She just loves the attention."
You get the feeling DZ Deathrays love the attention too. And who wouldn't, when you have hundreds of people going ballistic to your music right in front of you.