Lydia Lunch

Last touring Australia four years ago just prior to the pandemic shutdowns – with her suitably named band Retrovirus playing retrospective shows and promoted at the time as being the last Australian shows ever (the band has subsequently been dissolved) – it is a welcome return for the influential Lydia Lunch

Level five of the RCC is effectively the old Adelaide Uni Bar. There are still the same issues if you walk up the wrong stairs.

Lydia Lunch, veteran of and witness to the New York punk scene, was last seen in these parts taking the Edinburgh International Festival’s Light on the Shore season by the scruff of the neck with her uncompromising spoken word testaments.

It was, despite the weather, one of the hottest shows of the year…noisy, confrontational, emotional and powerful…the way rock & roll is meant to be.

These pieces embellish group vocals drums and guitars with keyboards brass melodica and a bewildering range of percussion.

It’s hard to imagine this year’s guest curator frazzled The Kinks frontman Ray Davies at home sipping on his cocoa and slipping on the latest CD by either a transgendered shoegaze chanteuse or a foul mouthed no wave temptress.

Hasselt, Belgium