Celebrating 21 years of debut album Get Born, Jet landed at Rock City to prove exactly why their songs have such long-lasting appeal...
Everyone knows Jet, even if they don’t think they do. Are You Gonna Be My Girl is surely ingrained into everyone’s memory... So what happened to them? This current tour is a 21-year anniversary of Jet’s 2004 debut album Get Born. Only two more studio albums followed: Shine On (2006), and Shaka Rock (2009) before the band went on a lengthy hiatus.
But now they are back, performing Get Born in its entirety to fans eager to soak up that early 2000s garage rock vibe. Jet are Nic Cester (vocals), Chris Cester (drums), Cameron Muncey (lead guitar and vocals) and Mark Wilson (bass). They also have Louis Macklin on keyboards tonight.
To kick off the show the band race through several high energy tracks beginning with a raucous version of Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, before running straight into She’s a Genius. The music is clearly going to be coming at us tonight at quite a fast pace. These guys are ready to rock this place. Black Hearts (On Fire), and new track Hurry Hurry completes a storming opening salvo of songs.
“This venue is very special to us. We came here on our first tour outside of Australia,” says Nic. “And I know what you’re thinking - we still look amazing!” And they do!
The band then move onto playing the entirety of Get Born, starting with Last Chance – a stomping track that is full of vocal fills and ad-libs. As the band are playing the tracks tonight sequentially off the record the crowd know exactly what’s next... Are You Gonna Be My Girl is the song that made Jet internationally famous. Nic takes in the adulation, standing on top of one of the guitar amps as he allows, and in fact encourages, the Rock City faithful to sing the entire first verse.
Hits Rollover D.J., Look What You’ve Done and Get What You Need come thick and fast, the latter complete with a flurry of Pete Townshend windmills to end the song by Nic. The lyrics might occasionally be slightly simplistic and perhaps the riffs are semi-borrowed from other bands such as The Kinks, the Rolling Stones, or AC/DC, but what Jet have is still distinct and they work well together. The lyrics serve the music, and the music is the most important element with Jet. This isn’t introspective, shoe-gazing music, it’s full-on, powerful twin-guitar rock music. And Rock City is a perfect venue for Jet – a band not quite big enough to sell out arenas and stadiums, but with a larger fanbase than sister venue Rescue Rooms could comfortably accommodate.
Things slow down a little with Move On as Nic switches to acoustic guitar, but the breakneck speed returns with Get Me Outta Here, Cold Hard Bitch and Take It or Leave It.
Cameron takes on the lead vocals for Radio Song, and Come Around Again, Lazy Gun and Timothy – a song dedicated to Muncey’s deceased brother, which due to its sensitive nature Jet have rarely played live – completes the Get Born set.
Naturally there’s an exception of an encore, but instead of the whole band leaving the stage, Nic remains to plays an acoustic version of Shine On before the rest of the band return and Jet give us two furious final songs to complete the evening: Seventeen and Rip It Up – both of which are performed with somehow even greater energy than the rest of the night which has already been really hard to beat – absolutely wow the crowd.
This is a night which will live long in the memory thanks to the sheer unrestrained bravado and swagger from these five guys from Oz.
Jet performed at Rock City on 10th October 2024, with support from Tempesst.
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