South Arcade | The Croxton
Thornbury on a Thursday night could be a winning contender for the name of my memoir that I probably will never write, but instead of my typical haunts, I found myself lining up against the painted black brick wall of The Croxton. I’ve only been here once before, back in 2023, to see We Came As Romans and Invent Animate, but due to the amount of concussions I probably suffered from the pit at that gig alone, all I could really remember about the venue was how I somehow dropped a freshly lit cigarette out of the barred windows of the smokers.
I’m a creature of habit, so I got my pint and loitered through the crowd until I tucked myself into a pocket to the left of the stage. It wasn’t long before the lights, bathing the room in a serene, deep orange glow, and Terra Rouge’s band took to the stage one by one. It’s been a few years since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the Rock Princess of Melbourne herself live, and in that time, she’s managed to polish her stage presence even more. With backup dancers following her onto the stage for the track “Deals with the Devil”, while adorned in a corseted, black gown, if anyone in the room didn’t know who she was before, they sure weren’t forgetting now. In the center front of the crowd were a huge cluster of her fans, adorned in tiaras and singing along to every single word, and even conducting the room as everyone sang happy birthday to the singer on stage.
It’s not very often I get to talk about songs about kissing girls on this website, so let me take the time to talk about the track “Kissing Girls”. Saccharinely sweet and dripping with sarcastic lust, the sharp guitars and slick drum rolls matched with the singer belting “I’m not gay I just like kissing girls,” are a recipe for perfection. As the guitar solo rang out, I looked around and the whole room was grinning and dancing along. Bri’s voice live was effortlessly pristine. You can hear how much stronger she’s become as a singer over the past few years, and her stage presence is natural, like it’s exactly where she’s meant to be. Be sure to check out any of her upcoming gigs, and also her most recent music video for “UR THE MAN”, released today!
It was only a short break between sets, yet the excitement could’ve been comparable with tension, or maybe it was just because the room was packed so tightly. Selling out your first headline tour is a bragging right, especially when you’ve only played here twice before. I caught South Arcade at Good Things last year, and it was a phenomenal first impression. I was itching to see them live again, especially after they dropped “SUPERMAN”, and I rinsed the fuck out of it for two months. The Oxford four piece arrived with a point to prove, opening with “HOW 2 GET AWAY WITH MURDER” and a relentless amount of adrenaline from the band. Their glorious blend of pop punk glossiness, nu-metal chunky riffs and a specific kind of nostalgia boasts their trademark sound “Y2K-core”, a breath of modern influence on an era we all yearn for deep down.
Tracks like “Supermodels” and “Drive Myself Home” landed with the kind of immediate recognition that makes a small bandroom feel much larger than it is, the crowd knew all the words and cues, and most importantly when it was time to throw themselves into one another. Frontwoman Harmony Cavelle is the obvious centre of gravity, bouncing between bratty confidence and full throttle rockstar theatrics, bounding across the stage as she belted choruses and taking the room with her in her energy. There’s a looseness in the performance from the whole band that stops the Y2K aesthetic from being some kind of costumed, nostalgia bait. Instead of pretending it’s 2005 again, they take everything fun and run it through their own much faster, chaotic filter.
Guitarist Harry Winks was a delight to watch on stage too, grinning ear to ear as he danced to his own music, and eventually even ditching the stage for the pit, the audience forming a circle pit around him. I love how much fan and artist interactions there were tonight, both artists have cultivated a space where that boundary is cherished in an entirely different way. Their fans don’t stand with arms crossed, the back of the pit basically doesn’t exist because everyone’s involved. As the night neared its end, we got to hear the band's newest, unreleased track “F.A.M.O.U.S”, which was gloriously groovy, and then closed out with their most cherished hit, “2005”.
South Arcade delivered a 10/10 set, they made the compact, high energy set seem easy, leaving no dead air, and as the room was left sweat soaked, there wasn’t anyone I could see who wasn’t still smiling.
