Pacifier, Fur Patrol, Two-Lane Blacktop at the St James

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

It's just gone 1am and Jon Toogood is out meeting his public. Only this isn't some post-gig handshake session. The rest of Pacifier are still cranking through the stuttering machine-gun riffs of early anthem Screwtop.

Not for the first time tonight, Toogood has clambered atop one of the speaker stacks at the side of the St James stage.

Suddenly, Toogood is Spiderman. He clambers along the wall from the speaker to one of the St James' opera boxes, leaps to another one, then across to the mezzanine, where, with support from the front rows, he teeters along the edge.

Two-thirds of the way across, he finds a spot to lower himself on to the arms of the people on the standing-only ground floor, points towards the stage where he is carried to arrive in good time for the closing bars of the song.

A victory lap of sorts and a deserved one, for even before Toogood's lunatic gymnastics, this felt like a momentous performance.

The band had some extra incentive. It was being recorded for a live album, and, presumably from the cameras about the place, an in-concert DVD, too. It also meant a greatest-hits set reaching way back, despite this being the band's first headlining national jaunt since the Pacifier album of a year ago marked the name change from Shihad.

The "Shihad-Shihad-Shihad ... " chant went up frequently from the long-time loyal local fanclub. In reply to one, Toogood dropped his trousers to give a personal endorsement of the Pacifier undies available at the merchandise stand. Given his gymnastics later, it's a good thing he has access to a steady supply.

It sure was loud in there. But if it was punishing on the ears, Pacifier's performance, complete with stunt-work and comedy scenes, was a celebration of the band as an unflagging New Zealand rock institution.

Yes, some songs off that Pacifier album might sound a little wet. But live, the likes of power-ballad Everything became a pop colossus. And mixed in with the early metal-graunch of Derail or the breathless fury of My Mind's Sedate, it was as memorable for its musical energy as its wall-climbing physical exertions.

In support were Fur Patrol, another expatriate outfit obviously happy to be back playing where people knew the name and some of the songs. Their appearance at the World Series shows here last year suggested Australia had toughened them up to the point of unlistenability.

But their set, which was big on unheard tracks from their forthcoming second album, Collider, showed they haven't abandoned their melodic finesse, just bent it a little.

The combination of Julia Deans' voice and their new-found grunt made an enjoyable set, though an extended vocal microphone meltdown mid-set hardly helped the cause.

Up first, Wellington's Two-Lane Blacktop showed they have quite a shtick to their metal-damaged garage rock, especially care of their shape-throwing, fast-talkin' frontman. But their songs were consistently cartoon-ish and the flakiness of their playing soon lost its charm.