I arrived at Goodgod Small Club on Friday night to watch Royal Headache, one of Sydney’s most exciting DIY bands, launch their much-anticipated debut LP. I was asked by the door bitch if I had tickets to the show. I did, I had purchased them a few weeks ago. “You’re one of the lucky ones,” she told me. The gig had sold out, as I expected it would, and all night she had been turning away those who had exercised less forethought.
In the crowded room underneath Liverpool St, four boys from Sydney’s Western Suburbs casually took to the small stage. There was no theatrical entrance, no grand announcement of their arrival, and absolutely no sense that they were about to do anything extraordinary. After a quick line check that saw lead singer Shogun enter a dispute with the sound guy over reverb levels and then cheekily complained about audience members putting their “hipster coats” on his microphone, the band got things underway. The opening chords of the better-known songs (Girls, Down the Lane, Eloise, Splash) whipped the audience into a sweaty frenzy. By the fourth song Shogun was shirtless, had managed to surf the crowd while singing, and even introduced us to his sister. Now, I have been to a lot of gigs, but I have never seen an audience be so immediately receptive to a local band. From the first note to the last the audience moshed, crowd surfed, hollered, and cheered.
It’s not hard to see the appeal of Royal Headache; their songs are direct, melodic, honest, and dangerous. They are as familiar as they are fresh, and they are delivered with conviction. Dynamically the band is very loud, but very restrained. The Rickenbacker’s classic tone chugs over deliberately simple drum patters while bass lines run tastefully through the songs. The results are pleasing and quite musical, but the real hero is Shogun’s voice; it comes from somewhere else entirely. Even live his distorted croon sounds like it’s been salvaged from the floor of a lost 1960’s Stax studio session.
The band played for almost 45 minutes, which is about 25 minutes longer than their usual sets, but I could have watched them until dawn. Royal Headache is an extremely entertaining and charming band. The door bitch was right; I was one of the lucky ones.
-Roland Kay-Smith
