Living End Debut New Songs At Secret Show Post by: Dave-O 25 October, 2010 - 12:13 PM

(Photo: Triple M)

While Powderfinger gets ready to play its final Melbourne show at a sold out Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Friday, The Living End played a secret show at the iconic Esplanade Hotel in Melbourne on the weekend.

Playing under the guise of the 'Safety Matches', the Aussie punks played a free, 40-minute set of all-new material for diehard fans in the front bar of the Espy. The place was jam-packed, leaving more than a hundred fans locked outside.

Triple M's Jay Mueller was there to witness the mayhem. "The Living End played only new material [and] the way they played and the crowd reacted, you would have thought they'd been playing these songs for years."

As you can see in the video above, the set was played at breakneck speed with new songs including "Black & White" (see video above), "Heat Wave" and "United".

"No weak spots," Jay said of the show. "Just hard edged, straight ahead rock n' roll."

(Photo: Triple M)

Triple M's Higgo caught up with a very sweaty band backstage after the show and they said the idea behind these live shows was to road test new songs from their upcoming album.

"The [new songs] felt awesome on stage," said singer Chris Cheney. "We feel there's no doubt that this will kick the ass of [their last album] White Noise.

"And the thing with these songs - the eight we picked tonight is only a small selection of the 30 that we've written and they're more of the rock sounding ones."

The band told us they've been demoing their butts off for a year in their home studio in Melbourne and have written 30-plus songs. They're aiming to begin recording the new album in January next year.

Leave your comment

• Matthew says

  I tried so hard to find out about this show but couldn't get any clue. Really annoyed.

  Posted Monday 25 October, 2010 6:19 PM
• Jacinta says

  Love every second of it. The new material rocks!

  Posted Monday 25 October, 2010 9:06 PM
• suarda says

  the new song so bloody f@#kin good

  can you sing when you're live in concert in bali mate, that's song so awesome.... Cheer's and Beer's

  Posted Monday 25 October, 2010 11:43 PM
• Matthew says

  Jacinta next time you know of a show you got to let me know!

  Posted Monday 25 October, 2010 11:44 PM
• Adam says

  Very great show, i was lucky enough to have been at all shows.

  United is definitely my favourite.

  Too bad there wasn't more like Chris wanted.

  Posted Wednesday 27 October, 2010 12:33 PM
• Jacinta says

  Lol which mathew are you?

  All you had to do was ask, it truely wasn't that hard to figure out though.

  Posted Wednesday 27 October, 2010 4:49 PM