Wild 2 Free Benefit

Wild2Free is an Australian animal sanctuary that rehabilitates native animals (mainly kangaroos). Last year shortly after opening a fire burned down the house on the property, so tonight's sold out benefit concert at The Croxton featuring Area-7 and The Living End was to help raise funds for Rae Harvey (longtime manager of The Living End) to rebuild.

I will admit that I completely missed the years when ska/punk band Area-7 were popular in Australia in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Danny and Ruth did give me a bit of a primer on their songs in the car ahead of the gig. They played an energetic set, managed to auction off a signed poster for $500, and finished things off with a cover of The Angels' "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?"

The Living End opened their set with "Save The Day," which was a bit of a hint that the set list was going to dive deep into their back catalogue for the hometown crowd. The first few releases featured throughout the set with "End Of The World," "Roll On," "Monday," "From Here On In" and "All Torn Down." They even played their eight minute opus "The Room" off Modern Artillery, which I think I've only heard live once before.

The whole show was a bit of a sing along throughout, although Chris thought the crowd's efforts on "White Noise" were a bit weak. The slower tracks "With Enemies Like That" and "Keep On Running" off their latest album Shift provided a bit of a breather, but the crowd surfing really kicked off towards the end of the set with "How Do We Know?" "Prisoner Of Society" and the encore tracks "Uncle Harry" and "Second Solution." It was great to see The Living End play in a smaller venue than normal and contribute to a benefit for such a good cause.

Here's the video for "Staring Down The Barrel"