Amyl and The Sniffers | Adelaide Festival 2022 review

Explosive, dynamic and vocally raw, punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers brought an exciting threat of danger to the Festival.

Adelaide Festival 2022. Amyl and the Sniffers. Picture: Jamie Wdziekonski

Amyl and The Sniffers

Contemporary Music | Australia

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL
The Summerhouse

March 5

There were no twin sets and tweed jackets at The Summerhouse as punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers brought an exciting threat of danger to the Adelaide Festival.

Some of the ghosts of 36 Festivals past would have been screaming in horror as Amy Taylor (Amyl) yelled “We don’t give a f*** – but an adoring audience lapped up the insolence.

Known as the human firework, Taylor eclipsed the pyrotechnic display from across the Torrens that was announcing the official opening of the Festival.

She was a livewire, highwire marionette tearing through a song set including No More Tears, Don’t Fence Me In, Capital and Security

“I’m not looking for trouble, I’m looking for love,” she demanded, but she’s likely looking for both.

Adelaide Festival 2022. Amyl and the Sniffers. Picture: Jamie Wdziekonski

Explosive, dynamic and vocally raw, this could have been The Damned in London in 1977 as this four-piece – only formed five years ago – are just as musically accomplished.

In an impromptu memorial for their fellow Melburnian, spin legend Shane Warne, The Sniffers – drummer Bryce Wilson, guitarist Dec Marten and bassist Fergus Romer – spun a sensational wall of sound to support Taylor’s spiky lyrics.

The highlight was delivered when the band generously invited two “grommets” (students) from Cardijn College at Noarlunga Downs on stage in a rousing rough-house version of Got You.

If this was an attempt to attract a different audience to the Festival and to demonstrate the event isn’t stuffy, prudish or expensive this one-night-only act was a brilliant triumph – but next time, pump up the volume!