Review: WARGASM - Live in Brisbane

4 Dec

Bang Your Head The Milkie Way!

Tuesday 2nd December 2025

Written by Tom Wilson
Photographed by: Rashid AlKamraikhi

You’re going to hear a lot of words used to describe tonight’s openers, Newcastle synth punks POLTERGEIST 9000.

If you were drawn towards the stage by two men firing off gang vocals over roughly 7000dB of throbbing bass synths, those words might sound like “energetic” or “passionate”. If you didn’t get it, and were slowly pushed back up the stairs and out into the Brightside’s smoking area until WARGASM came on, those words might be a tad meaner. SENSE, however, is captivated by the energy on display, and can’t pull our eyes off them. By the end of their set, we can’t help but be impressed by both their ferocity and their confidence. There is so much music coming out at the moment that the absolute WORST thing you can do is be boring … and I don’t think anyone is going to call POLTERGEIST 9000 “boring”.

On their first visit to Australia as part of Good Things Festival, tonight might not be a sellout, but the WARGASM fans here are all die-hards, and they get their money’s worth and then some. The pit is half women and no place for a giant bloke with a bad back, so I prop myself up on a stair railing, and watch the chaos as Venom turns the front of the crowd into a warzone. Looking like a nu metal Deborah Harry, Milkie jokes about the practicalities of going through customs with a bullet belt, and Fukstar and new track Small World Syndrome go down a treat. Milkie asks the girls to fill in for LIMP BIZKIT’s Fred Durst on their track Bang Your Head, and Sam Matlock is screaming so hard I’d be surprised if his throat lining is intact.

It's nice to see a band and know that you’re seeing them in their prime, not twenty years later with grey hair and one original member. I think they’re awesome, and I just turned 40. I cannot imagine how cool they must look through the eyes of a teenager who has just discovered them. Spit’s riff – so iconic that Sam is literally singing it at one point – builds the tension up … up … up … before it hits, and the pit explodes in a mix of crunching nu metal and riot grrrl spite. They say their goodbyes and play audience peekaboo (otherwise known as an encore), and wrap things up with the track that made me a fan, their cover of N.E.R.D.’s Lapdance.

This was an absolutely sick night, and I look forward to doing it all again at Good Things. Hopefully they’ll come back soon … because no one likes a delayed WARGASM.