Friday 1 December – The Brunswick Ballroom.
The final Melbourne show for Perth punk founders The Victims. Led by Dave Flick (aka Dave Faulkner of The Hoodoo Gurus) with James Baker (The Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus, Beasts of Bourbon, The Dubrovniks) on drums and Ray Ahn (The Hard-Ons) subbing in for original bassist Dave Cardwell.
The band ran through a rapid-fire show that included both sides of their debut single, with “Television Addict” closing their main set. It was great to hear “Flipped Out Over You” and “Open Your Eyes”. They also included a couple of choice covers, The Troggs “Love is All Around” during the main set, and punk anthem “Chinese Rock” in the encore.
Highlight was Kim Salmon joining for a duet of The Scientists “Teenage Dreamer” from their self-titled debut. Despite being friends and musical collaborators since the mid Seventies, according to Falkner it was the first time Kim Salmon, Dave Faulkner and James Baker had shared a stage. The band returned for a short encore, closing with a drawn out “Disco Junkies”.
For such an influential band, as Dave Faulkner joked at one point “We usually played to crowds less than half this size, but every one of them went on to form a band” The Victims discography is in a fairly shoddy state. From their rare as hens teeth self-released debut single to limited run vinyl on small Japanese and US punk labels – surely The Victims are due for some form of reissue to make their glorious noise available to a wider audience.