The Living End- Twangin' At Twilight

The Living End are back together in Australia for their Staring Down The Highway regional tour, but to kick things off they are playing a few Zoo Twilights shows in Melbourne and Sydney. Billed as Twangin' At Twilight, tonight was the first of two nights at Melbourne Zoo. Danny and I found a spot on the lawn and had some Mr Burger for dinner as Gabriella Cohen and her band played a bluesy/indie set of music.

The Living End began the evening with an acoustic set, which included members of The String Sirens providing backing string arrangements to many of the songs. They played stripped back versions of "Moment In The Sun," "Raise The Alarm," "For Another Day" and a reggae version of "West End Riot." They also did covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Down On The Corner" and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby."

After a short break the electric version of the set started as Chris invited everyone to stand up for the rest of the show. Off their latest album Shift they played "Monkey," "Staring Down The Barrel" and "Keep On Running" with The String Sirens. We also got the classics "Second Solution," "Roll On," "All Torn Down," and "Who's Gonna Save Us?" Highlights of the night for me were an amazing version of "How Do We Know?" with The String Sirens, and someone throwing a bra on stage during "Hold Up," which Andy proceeded to put on his head after the song (and then promptly took off when Chris reminded him that his daughter was in the audience).

For each of the Zoo Twilights shows the band have a special guest on the bill, and we were lucky to have Dan Sultan grace the stage for the Melbourne dates. They played Dan's song "Fear Of Flying," and then Dan sang lead on The Living End track "White Noise." Together they did a cover of Bill Haley's "Rock The Joint" accompanied by a couple friends of Scott on trumpet and saxophone. To finish off the night they ripped through "Prisoner of Society," which had everyone singing along. This was such a special and unique show and probably the first and last time I will ever see The Living End while standing barefoot on a picnic blanket.