Cong Josie and the Hell Racers at the Bendigo Hotel
25 September 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Cisco Savage and Snake Powder.
I am yet to make sense of what happened last night.
It was a late decision to go see Cong Josie play after Adrian spotted a gig poster while walking around Collingwood. Cong Josie, greaser heartthrob, whose album Moto Zone I bought on a whim not long ago after hearing him spin some wacky Euro-pop discs on PBS FM. I was pretty excided to see him play live.
The Bendigo Hotel until recently was a metal venue—dark, grotty and if they served food I never once saw it. It got bought out and the new owners have turned it into more of a gastropub. To their credit, they have retained the band room and there seems to be plenty going on there.
But you know when you walk in somewhere and something feels not quite right?
It was like that the moment we walked in. I can't really explain why. Something about the mix of people and the manner of the bar staff. Not unfriendly, nothing bad, just... something.
As the first band Snake Powder prepared to start, a man got up on stage. He kind of looked like a real estate agent? But he was in fact the person who organised the gig, and he got up to thank his wife and introduce the bands as if this would be a normal thing to do.
He also gave an acknowledgement of Country, which apart from being good manners, was a great relief because one thing we can all be sure of is that no real estate agent—not one—has ever given, and would ever give, an acknowledgement of Country.
At this point I am at pains to say that I don't like to yuck anyone's yum. Everyone gets to like their own things. On the other hand, this is my blog and what is the point if I can't even be honest about my own opinions?
Snake Powder, well, I'm going to just think of them as a group of friends who get together and do stuff, which is great. However, they played the blandest, most formulaic blues-rock possible. Less musically creative than AC/DC, even. Like their music came out of the AI slop generator and was subsequently released on Mushroom Records.
Now we start to ask, where are we? How did we end up here? How did this situation come to be?
The second band, Cisco Savage, were also flummoxing. They were again introduced by the not-a-real estate agent guy. They had dual vocalists (a man and a woman) who behaved like rock stars in the kind of way Germans might. And, to be fair, they had a loyal fan base in attendance. At least half a dozen people wearing matching shirts, at times arm in arm, holding their pints of beer aloft, singing along... now I think about it, also like Germans might.
(I once saw Herbert Grönemeyer play live in Freiberg to 53,000 people, complete with at least five encores, I would know about this.)
(The closest I have ever experienced such a thing as Cisco Savage was going to see Tiger Cub Rami, a Japanese band, play at a new year's show in Tokyo. They were cheered on by the most loyal, passionate, synchronised fans, who all buggered off after Rami played, ignoring all of the far better bands on afterwards.)
Earlier in the day I had been joking around about chaos magic and wrote some 'magic words' down in invisible ink as if I was casting a spell. I idly started to wonder if it had unexpectedly worked: I'd accidentally created a portal, and we had stepped through it.
The crowd cleared out after Cisco Savage, clearly having gotten their fix and left just like Tiger Cub Rami fans would. We were now just hoping that Cong Josie would make all of this okay. I think it was at this point we noticed Phil MacDougall of the PBS show Sunglasses After Dark in the crowd. He wasn't wearing sunglasses.
Old mate again introduced the act, Cong and his band the Hell Racers, a saxophonist in lycra leopard print and a guitarist in leather Reg Grundies. Things were both looking and sounding up, like hearing the confessions of a pomade-smeared motorcycle gang playing at a roadhouse just down the way from the Black Lodge.
The saxophonist in particular was excellent, especially for people like me who are bewitched by everything Twin Peaks. Cong himself, well, Melbourne seems to be good at spawning sincere and weird front men lately, Our Carlson being another good example.
Now I think about it, framing this whole experience as Lynchian really helps to explain what happened. Maybe we did step through a portal. In which case we re-entered normality by saying the magic words—to the cab driver on the way home—"er... is the meter running?"
