This One's A F***in' Corker!

Before Friday night’s sold-out show at Melbourne’s Forum, I’d only ever seen You Am I at the Prince of Wales. The opulent Forum with its gorgeous amphitheatre-like ceiling, is a far cry from the cramped and smoke-infested surrounds of any typical pub bandroom. I have to admit that foolishly, I had my doubts as to whether YAI’s brand of pounding rawk would somehow get lost in the enormity of these new surrounds – like standing on a gigantic nodal point. Of course, I should have known better. Without dwelling on it for too long, it’s also fair to say that the band have had a tumultuous year. The charismatic Tim Rogers has seemed to attract media attention for all the wrong sorts of reasons. Fittingly however, on Friday night, our Tim did the equivalent of defiantly raising a single middle finger to all the rumour-mongers and negative, ill-informed media fray out there.


In the darkened, packed theatre, the band emerged onstage to the tune of some very cool-sounding techno music. They started off the main set with the punchy, instantly recognisable “Thuggery” (my personal favourite on Convicts). Before we knew it, this glorious two-minute ditty was over and Tim launched into the spirited “Sweet Life”, vehemently spitting out lines like the opening ‘You’re beautiful/But you’re f***ed’ and making you wince in sympathy with him. To many, Convicts is seen as the record that has marked YAI’s return to form, and the set was littered with the best offerings from this album, such as the frank “By My Own Hand” (dedicated to all the 'gossiping f***wits in this town'), “Friends Like You” and “Nervous Kid” (complete with the stammering N-n-n-n-). The main set was concluded by an eardrum-popping version of the frenzied “Thank God I’ve Hit The Bottom”. You could be forgiven for thinking you’d accidentally walked into an exorcism, with Rogers clearly shooing away some demons.

In addition to leaning heavily on newer material, the band was very generous with the selection of older numbers for the crowd too. Rare treats included the reflective “Jaimme’s Got A Gal”, the gorgeous “If We Can’t Get It Together” and the grinding “Sound As Ever” – the latter kicking off the encore after a marathon main set.

There might have been two solid support acts, and three other people onstage with him, but the night undoubtedly belonged to Tim Rogers. It can be said that the momentum of your typical YAI gig depends heavily on Tim’s form. During Friday’s show, he good-naturedly teased the crowd, responding to requests with reassurances like, “What? Cathy’s Clown? Aaah, just wait for the next one, this one’s a f***in’ corker!!!” The mile-a-minute flow was briefly broken when Rogers was left onstage alone to sing “Damage” and the evening’s highlight, “Who Takes Who Home?”

On reflection, the set was indeed a dream set. The rollicking “Berlin Chair” had everyone screaming along, and I think I wasn’t alone in breathing a sigh of relief when the band kept going after their usual closer, “How Much Is Enough”. “Jewels And Bullets” was typically cathartic, and the perhaps unlikely choice (but who cares?) of the gentle “Open All Night” concluded a massive show. It’s not just one of the best YAI shows I’ve seen, but one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

God bless the f***in’ lot of them.