I’m not going to lie, I didn’t know who Drug Church were. I saw a few friends share the gig poster and looked up their profiles. The shows looked hectic which I thought would be fun to shoot and with friends posting about it I thought, they must be good. I liked the few tracks I checked out so along I went a couple of nights later.

I will start this review off by getting straight to the point – I AM SO GLAD I WENT!

I arrived to the venue just after 8pm as I was told doors were at 8. But when I arrived they hadn’t opened yet, so I just found some familiar faces and mingled a bit until they did. It was cool to see a decent amount of people waiting for the door to open. I hadn’t heard if it sold well or not so I help hopefully for a good crowd.

I got downstairs, got a heart stamped on my wrist and went to the stage to gauge my plan for the night. After a bit of a wait as the crowd trickled in, Dick Move took the stage to kick things off. I was excited to see their set. With crowds, I am used to energy building so I thought oh crowd probably won’t mosh or push around for them but we’ll see. Nope first track kicks in and I instantly feel myself move. It wasn’t super wild but still a good way to start that’s for sure. Even Lucy (vocals) acknowledged that they don’t usually have a mosh pit, so I was even more stoked for them. Lucy even went into the crowd, mic in hand to join the pit briefly. The crowd seemed pretty stoked, and though it felt like a quick set, Dick Move killed it and I can’t wait to see them open for Foo Fighters.

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Melanie were up next. I decided to place myself more to the side as I knew the crowd may start moving more at this point as more people had packed in. And I wasn’t wrong, as soon as the guys kicked off, so did the crowd. I feel like Melanie always have that energy and vibe when they perform live. This crowd just knew what they wanted and Melanie were keen to join in. Jame (guitar + vocals) went from on top of the crowd to in the crowd and even down on the floor to suck up a bit of the beer that had been knocked over (funny + gross all the same haha). There was even one point where a guy in the crowd grabbed the mic and did some vocals with a couple of other people in the crowd before graciously returning it. It always feels like a fun and hectic set with Melanie, but in such a positive way. Both bands at this point had delivered great sets vocally and instrumentally. If there were issues, I never noticed them.

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Finally it was time for Drug Church to take the stage. Whammy definitely stemmed a bit more packed at this point and I was wondering if it was close to sell out. I couldn’t really tell as everyone began to get closer. My curiosity was with the crowd, would it be the same energy when they played or would it be more intense?

When the band took the stage, I got my answer. The crowd constantly surged forward and as soon as the crowd began crowd surfing from the stage, it just didn’t stop. Drug Church really encourage crowd surfing and were telling everyone they want them to walk on the ceiling. It was compared to “Spiderpig/Spider man/women/they”. If you know Whammy, that roof is low, so to see this happen was actually impressive. As soon as people went up, they flipped up, walked and surfed away. It was wild! I essentially became pinned against the speaker and was worried that would fall as the base speaker seemed pinned but the one on top was definitely moving so I tried to move it back a bit if I felt it was needed. Fans did the same with the floor monitors, but it got to the point where they stopped as the crowd was just falling. Us all in the front row ended up longing the front of the stage at one point due to how much the crowd moved.

The band just reciprocated that energy and seemed like they were having the best time. Once again, I personally couldn’t fault the performance because it sounded great and with the energy and just sheer enjoyment everyone was having, that was all that mattered.

I’ve been to my share of heavy gigs with wild crowds at Whammy but that was definitely the wildest I have experienced – And I’ve had a wall of death at whammy fall on top of me! That wildness combined with great music and just the fact that everyone was all smiles and having fun really made for a great night. PLEASE RETURN AGAIN DRUG CHURCH!

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