Live Review: The Last Gang at HQ

Denver CO – 29 May 2023

They say that, no matter how big your audience is, you have to play like you’re playing to a packed house. On their first headlining US tour, The Last Gang faced this challenge head on as they passed through Denver while everyone and their sister was still out of town for Punk Rock Bowling. There couldn’t have been more than 30 people in the entire venue, including the bands and staff, and that’s the sparse audience that The Last Gang faced. Still, it was a challenge that frontwoman Brenna Red and her bandmates were more than up for.

Unlike a lot of tours that started after the pandemic, The Last Gang didn’t pack their bill to the gills with a double or even triple headlining show, and seemed to favor a smaller venue with local opening acts. First up was State Drugs, a local Denver band with a distinct Replacements/Hüsker Dü vibe to them. The lead singer’s banter was extremely awkward, but mostly in an endearing way. There was one weird comment where he made about how strange it was to wash your underwear in the morning so you aren’t wearing underwear until midday, which I think made everyone in the venue think “Why wouldn’t you be wearing underwear while you wash underwear? How many pairs do you own?”

Next up was another Denver band called Egoista. Egoista were certainly talented, and I appreciated them turning up the bass very heavily in the mix as the bass player was especially good and sometimes even played his bass like a guitar. But what kept me from really engaging with their music was the fact that I couldn’t pin down what their style was supposed to be. It sounded like just general punk, except their last song that had an almost psychobilly edge to it. For all their skill, they didn’t have a hook for me that really made me latch on to them.

Then came The Last Gang, who, at first, looked depressed as they took the stage to weak applause. However, they quickly picked themselves up and dusted themselves off and put on a hell of a show. Bassist Sean Viele was very animated from the beginning of the show, and his enthusiasm and energy seemed to spread to the rest of the band as he leapt and ran across the stage playing his instrument. Brenna Red proved to have outstanding stage presence, even as she was probably the shortest member of the band. But for all her swagger, she seemed at least 10 feet tall. She had a few moments of awkward banter, but much like with State Drugs, her awkwardness just endeared her to you even more. Her introduction to “Believe in the Poet” came off somewhat cliched as she tried to talk about the ability of one person to change the world, but I appreciated her attempt to instill hope in the midst of an awful political climate.

The band promised a few treats for the show, and these included playing a brand new song as well as playing their cover of Fugazi’s “Blueprint” which appeared on a recent tribute album (that TGEFM reviewed). Rather than having a traditional encore where the entire band leave the stage and wait a few minutes to come back up, Red announced “Blood Drunk” as their last song and, as they finished the song and Red put down her guitar about to step off stage, she stopped herself right on the edge of the stage as the band started up again and she took back the microphone to sing “Nobody’s Prostitute.” As it was the only song the band played that didn’t use a second guitar, she was freer to get close to the edge of the stage and really interact with the audience. It made for a nice variation on the traditional encore which gets quite predictable these days.

Considering how well the band pulled off this small crowd on their first headlining tour of the US, I can only imagine how well they would command a packed venue. And, given how good both of their albums have been, I think it’s only a matter of time before they’re playing bigger venues and bigger crowds. Until then, whether there’s five people in the room or five thousand, The Last Gang puts on a truly crowd-pleasing show.