LIVE REVIEW: SPACE&AGES, Loose Goose, Tear Drive + Porcelain @ Black Bear Lodge – 29/06/2025

Words by Kate Lockyer

Photography by Kiara Bruse | @kiarabvisuals

An exuberant night was had by the crowd at Black Bear Lodge on Friday night as the motley assembly of SPACE&AGES, Loose Goose, Tear Drive, and Porcelain took to the stage for SPACE&AGES’ sold-out headline show ‘Summer – Spring’.

The night started off with Porcelain, exactly the kind of gritty rock you’d hope to hear from a Brissie band singing about the pokies, as they announced in the preamble to one of their songs. It was high energy, grunge, and pretty much how they describe themselves in their insta bio – “if Kurt Cobain had a vagina”.

Tear Drive, dressed all in black, brought a slightly more serene presence than Porcelain, with clouds of synth floating through the room. Their songs still had a hard, dark edge to them, however, and ferocious percussion. “Wait for me / it’s such a shame you never wait for me… / Where did you go last night?” they sang. The next song had a rising bassline that struck a slightly more hopeful tonality than their others but thumping drums and lyrics that hinted at turmoil and heartbreak. 

They then played Lost in the Moment which “may be out soon, but you didn’t hear that from me” – as introduced by the vocalist. It was a reflective song with rugged Sam Fender vibes and a feel-good chord progression as they sang, “People are talking / they got nothing to say… / Lost in the moment / we got carried away”. A couple of well-chosen covers had the crowd thoroughly on their side, with an unreserved rendition of Dublin in Ecstasy by Inhaler and the Arctic Monkeys’ 505.

Nothing’s Gonna Save You Now, their only official release, had “oohs” start off the song, sounding positively angelic, and a cool rhythm in the bass and drums had us hooked. An echoey ‘now’ in the chorus was a nice touch, emphasising the feeling that the lyrics were cathartic for the writer, like shouting the warning of the song’s title into an abyss and hearing it echo back to you. A spectacular moment came when the guy playing the tele pulled out a bow to play it like a violin (??), which created a spacey feel along with buzzy bass. The ending ramped up, picking up speed before hurtling into space with us all along for the ride.

The Gold Coast’s Loose Goose brought a more playful style, kicking off with a whimsical riff, loud drums and cheerful vocals as they sang, “You’ve got me hanging by a thread / I wanna go to San Diego with you”. Then we got a more upbeat track, carefree and defiant with the crowd clapping along. 

They introduced a song called Cairns (yes, after the city), a bouncy one about gaining independence from a relationship. They played so emphatically that one band member busted a string, but after borrowing a guitar, they got back on track. 

“Now we get into the softest song of the night,” the vocalist said. “This one’s called Nectarine Fuzz. Anyone a fan of Peach Fur? Well this song is named after Peach Fur.” A fingerpicked intro started to get heavier with some syncopated drums and guitar that switched up the groove, underscoring the lyrics as he sang, “I wish I weren’t so proud / I meant nothing to you”. They went for it in bridge with a cool solo that lifted us.

Then they performed a soon-to-be-released track, Split Bills, about bad dates. Short, sharp lines and guitar-like barbed wire spoke of being jilted. A cover of The Grogans’ I Cannot Read Your Mind was high octane, and their final songs Rainbow and Better Man were similarly rock ‘n roll with a great chorus and full of personality, with a fun call and response bit ripped straight from Freddy Mercury’s playbook.

SPACE&AGES strode onstage with flirty bass from Hayden and a blast of energy for their first-ever release, High For Free. They bounced around the stage in sync, with Phin leaping into that falsetto in the chorus with an electrifying touch of vibrato. They each got their moment at the end, a little noodling on the guitar, a bass line rising out of the mix, a bat away on the drums. Phin greeted us – “How you doing?” he called to a room buzzed already from the three opening bands.

An energetic bassline from Hayden underscored the next song, the floor undulating under us in this sensitive but rowdy ode to a tender moment in Pressed to Mine. Along the same vein, Trial & Error traversed the territory of intimacy and what it means, but this time they started off with a singalong, everyone chanting “dada-dada”. Phin acted out the lyrics in pantomime, and they jumped around in circles on their guitars with infectious energy that had us singing along again in the chorus. It’s a big night for them, three years in the band and a headline gig, and you could feel their elation spreading through the audience.

Then the pace slowed down for Puzzle Piece, which was angsty with a soulful lead guitar solo from Sam and vocals packed full of emotion in the final chorus. As if they hadn’t gotten in their feels enough, Phin mentioned they did a show for the next song at The Bearded Lady last year (“RIP Bearded Lady”)… El Dorado had everyone waving their phone flashlights, and the high and the low of the softly murmured lyric against the crashing guitar and drums felt like the pendulum of emotion in the song. As we clapped along in the bridge to Sam’s moody chords, we got another sliver of the vibrato from Phin’s vocals, prompting a “Yeah sing that shit Phin!” from the audience. 

Hayden thanked the audience for coming along and introduced a new song, Pull the Plug, that they had played only once before, handing over to Phin to conduct yet another singalong for the start of the song, a slow “Tell me I don’t want it”. The little moments of holding back from the instruments in the chorus before launching full throttle into each line felt something like having little shuriken of electricity thrown at you.

Another slow one, their freshest release Summer – Spring, demonstrated that SPACE&AGES has a bit more of an introspective style than the previous bands, an anthem for breakups and broken things, but with a cool guitar solo thrown in of course. After thanking the other bands and acknowledging how “phenomenal” it was to have sold out the gig, they started to play their second last song of the night. Friends, they said, also released recently, has seemed to resonate more than the others with their listeners, and so it was on this note that they started to wrap things up, with funky bass, a sweet guitar solo, drums that seemed to hit the hard beat right when it would hit the hardest, and heartfelt lyrics. 

Sending off the night with SSR and some special guests, including trumpet and sax players joining the stage, nonchalant vocalist Chris Dwyer, and Harry Harvey on guitar, it turned into a big party up there for this tongue-in-cheek song about the quest for wealth and luxury. They danced across the stage, “I’m feeling on top of the world / Spending money, spend it all on myself / Donating, what would I do that for? / Cause all I want is more”. In the riotous applause of the crowd, I can see there sure is more to come for SPACE&AGES.