Shot! Airbourne in Portsmouth

The truth is you can’t review an Airbourne gig without mentioning AC/DC. Whilst you might think the constant comparison is the bane of their lives, you have to remember the O’Keeffe brothers are also probably AC/DC’s biggest fans.

The similarities between both bands run deep, both are from Australia, musically and lyrically it’s sometimes hard to tell the two apart. The biggest difference is AC/DC are one of the biggest bands in the world, while ironically given their name, Airbourne are still waiting for their career to really take off. And, in all likelihood, they will never attain anything close to the heights of their heroes.

It’s got nothing to do with their music or their performances, rather it’s all about ambition. Airbourne just seem content to keep on doing what they’ve been doing, year in, year out, come rain or shine.

This gig was a case in point. Just ten months earlier I was at the same venue seeing them for the second time. And here we were in the exact same place playing to probably the exact same audience. Usually, bands have a career trajectory which takes them to bigger and bigger venues when they return to a city. Portsmouth doesn’t have any big venues, but they could have played the biggest, the Guildhall. Instead they were content to return to the intimacy of the Pyramids in Southsea.

Now a wet Wednesday in Southsea is not most people’s rock n roll dream. Or most band’s location of choice to kick off the European leg of your tour. But Airbourne aren’t most bands. They’re certainly not the coolest band around and there’s nothing they do that owes anything to what’s happening in music today. Instead, they’ve carved a niche for themselves, playing straight-up riff-based, four on the floor rock n roll, where most songs sound like you’ve heard them before and their lyrics — usually filled with references to sex and drinking — sound like they were written by naughty schoolboys.

But enough comparisons to AC/DC.

For me, their music has always been a guilty pleasure. No other band puts out classic rock n roll so consistently as Airbourne. And few that I know put on such an energetic rock show. Always amped-up, Airbourne start theirs the same way most rock bands end theirs: dripping with sweat, shirtless and giving it plenty!

But if I’m really honest, you’d have to be a bit of an Airbourne nerd to notice much difference between their 2017 sand 2016 shows. Backed old-school style by a wall of Marshall amps, there were no video screens, effects boxes or fancy lighting. Indeed, there was almost no ‘production’ whatsoever. Just four long-haired guys on a small stage. No fancy costumes, just ripped black jeans and low slung Gibson Explorers. No pretensions, nothing superfluous. Nothing new. Even Joel’s sweatband was the same as he wore last time. They even began and ended both shows with the exact same songs.

But wait a moment, that “nothing new” comment wasn’t strictly true. There was a new rhythm guitarist. Harri Harrison has recently replaced long-term member David Roads who quit the band — and the music business — to go back to help run his family farm. And then there were some new songs from their fourth album, Breakin’ Outta Hell.

Even though it was, as Yogi Berra once famously quipped, a case of deja vu, all over again, what they do, they do very well. Being a band that are on an almost continuous tour and that they’d only just finished playing South America, they were like the proverbial well-oiled machine. As tight as you like, they sounded both loud ‘n’ proud, to steal another quote, this time from a classic rock n roll album title.

In fact, they sounded better than I can remember them either last year or the first time I saw them play at the Concorde 2 in Brighton back in 2014. They even slowed it down for Rivalry the closest thing they’ve got to a slow song. And, perhaps because it showed a different side to the band, it was probably my favourite moment of their set. It was a show of no real surprises, but that’s exactly what you expect from Airbourne. You know what you’re gonna get and they deliver it better than most.

Personally, I’d love to see them push the envelope just a little further, add some more production value to their staging and be a tad less predictable. In fact, what I’d really love is to see them on a big stage. In Joel O’Keeffe they have a brilliant front man. For my money, he’s got one of the best rock voices of anyone around right now.

The next two months see Airbourne rocking around Europe. Not many bands go straight from a gig in Portsmouth to one in St Petersburg, Russia. For them, the motivation is simple: it’s all for rock n roll. But then there aren’t too many bands around like Airbourne. Unless of course you include that other Australian band.

Setlist: Ready To Rock| I’m Going To Hell For This | Diamond In The Rough | Down On You | Rivalry | Girls In Black | Bottom Of The Well | Breakin’ Outta Hell | It’s All For Rock n Roll | Too Much Too Young | Live It Up | Runnin’ Wild

Follow Airbourne at @Airbourne

Airbourne’s latest album Breakin’ Outta Hell is out now

Read my review of last year’s Airbourne gig in Portsmouth here

Read my 2014 chat with Airbourne’s Ryan O’Keeffe here

“To me, shooting live music is all about capturing the personality of the performer and the emotion of their performance. And then creating an iconic image.”

Behind the image: All these images were shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 75 1.8 lens using available light only, and the camera’s built-in digital zoom. I was only able to shoot the first two songs during which I focused entirely on Joel knowing that I was sure to get some good portraits. As always, he didn’t disappoint and I came away with the shots I wanted. Having photographed Joel twice before, I wanted to do something different this time. I’m currently a little obsessed with Prisma. It’s not something I use on every image, only those that I think suit that treatment. This is the first time I’ve shot a band and used Prisma on every image. I know not everyone will agree, but for me this is one occasion where I feel it really works, Shot in Portsmouth on 27 September 2017.

Footnote: Brothers Joel and Ryan O’Keeffe formed Airbourne in 2003 in their distinctly un-rock n roll home town of Warrnambool, Victoria, population 34,000. Declared a city in 1918, next year marks Warrnambool’s 100th birthday. I wonder if Airbourne will be invited to play at the centennial celebrations?