Redhook ‘Crowbar Birthday Week Celebrations’ @ Crowbar, Sydney 17/12/2025.

It’s time to unleash the inner mutant! I don’t know if it’s a full moon tonight, but despite it being a Wednesday night a week before Chrissy, fans tonight for beloved Sydney alt/hard-rock mutants Redhook, waste no time storming into the venue as soon as doors open, like starved zombies! Why are Redhook mutants? It’s because the band have become well known for mutating genre’s like punk, electronic, metal, rock and alternative, with the end result, an infectious signature hard-hitting unapologetic sound, that no matter how much you might shake it on the dance floor at their powerhouse shows, you can never shake their sound from your system, like a vampiric bite!

Let’s make some Bad Decisions…

The crowd are already rowdy and ready for Redhook, even before support bands Night Guys and Bad/Love build up the gradually rising inferno, but when Redhook are unleashed out onto the stage, well, “we don’t need no water let the mother-fucker burn!”.

Tick tick tick, BOOM! The band start with the riotous track off their latest album ‘Mutation’, ‘bomb.com'. Lead singer Emmy bounces around the stage and the raised platform connecting the stage and audience, in signature confident sex appeal rock swagger, wearing only a sports bra and undies, while her rapid-fire vocals thread through the songs verses, before unleashing their fury in the choruses

Up next are two more hard-hitters from ‘Mutation’, ‘Dr Frankenstein’ and one of my musical obsessions, ‘Hot Tub’. The energy in the crowd, from me included, in blazing! Everyone including the band on stage, are letting go and just having fun seemingly with no care for the consequences to our bodies tomorrow, after all, that’s future me’s problem. I do love this venue’s sound capabilities, able to blast the bass hard enough to vibrate the skin off you, like a vampire exposed to sunlight, whilst still keeping perfect clarity for all other sounds, notably Emmy’s tantalising vocals!

I seriously don’t need drugs with how kinda trippy this is for me sober! Let me explain. I can only see light, movement and sometimes contrasting outlines up close. So imagine I’m rocking out/dancing more ferociously than I have for a very long time, partly because I actually have the space around me to really let loose, and the sound and energy tonight is seriously infectious, controlling my actions like compulsion, and it’s a flurry of rapid lighting and movement on stage, as the band move around constantly, frequently singing/screaming in my face, spraying me with a shower of blonde/strawberry-blonde hair which I’m guessing is Emmy? Plus guest artist appearances throughout the set from Luke from Forever Ends Here, Bonnie from Stand Atlantic, Monique from Reliqa and more.

It’s one big trippy, energetic, blazing party of heavy music! And are those wrestlers on stage? Ok, now I really must be trippin’!

No, apparently there are two PWA wrestlers on stage putting on a quick show before the band launch into the next song, then at another point, one of the wrestlers stands on the platform in front of the stage, after a bunch of beach balls with messages written on them were tossed into the crowd and yells at us “I fucking hate beach balls! We aren’t playing the next fuckin’ song until those fuckin’ beach balls are all fuckin’ gone!’ are which Emmy comes back out and says something along the lines of, “here’s to that cranky old bitch for abusing the beach ball guy and killing the vibe!”. This is met with a chorus of laughter and applause.

Throughout the set which includes tracks such as ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘Hexxx’, two acoustic tracks which have never been done acoustically before, ‘Imposter’, and ‘Bad Decisions’ before an encore of ‘Paralyse’. All the while, a bubble machine was brought out for one song, pillows thrown into the crowd for them to rip up like rabid animals, balloons, beach balls, Emmy quite literally diving off the stage for a wrestler to pluck her out of the air so easily like catching a tennis ball, and even passing out cool mutant versions of the band members printed on cardboard masks, for us at the front to wear for the last couple of songs!

Holy shit! I’m drenched in sweat as if there really was a ‘Hot Tub’ on stage, or as if I were a vampire starved of blood going through withdrawals or something! I’ve been to a few Redhook shows before and really wasn’t expecting a show of this calibre of guest performances, theatrics, and props (beach balls, pillows, bubble machines, masks, etc). This has raised the bar so much for their shows now, and this wasn’t even an album tour show! 

Thanks so much guys, I always love coming to your shows, but this was next level and the perfect final gig for 2025!