Sweetie: Local Sydney Four-Piece Bestows Sexy Mystique & Energetic Rock To Pleasure Club

It is Saturday, July 15, and Newtown’s Pleasure Club is wrapped in its weekend pandemonium.

A low ceiling bears down upon a late-night cavorting throng. A warped disco ball spins overhead. Roars erupt around a golden lit pool table. A bar, central in the chaos, seethes. And on the fringe of the masses – quiet compared to the rest of the room – a small crowd is gathered before a semi-circular stage.

Thick red curtains ring the tiny platform, obscuring the source of clicks, clacks, thumps, and rattles – sounds of instruments frantically being arranged.

As 10pm arrives, the clattering stops. Breaths are held in the small crowd; tense; excited; and finally, let free in roaring shouts of glee. The driving drums, and monstrous bass of local Sydney four-piece rock group, Sweetie claws through the curtains and into the room.

With mechanical slowness the curtains ease open. Four women are revealed, crammed onto the stage. They glare at us from behind speed-dealer sunglasses – their music growing louder as the red velvet disappears.

Guitarist Lucy Warriner introduces a bending note atop the opening song, 2023’s Liminal Bliss’ fiery, bouncing rhythm. Vocalist Lily Keenan leans into her microphone, the heels of her boots cracking into the stage. Her leg bows forward. Her guitar rests upon it. And with a cheeky smile, she greets the audience with the first teasing vocals of the night. The other three members join Keenan with laughing shrieks at the chorus, and with this, the venue descends upon the stage.

If anything, this opening energy only increases for the remaining forty minutes. The crowd before the stage rapidly grows, and the band’s enthusiasm grows with it. A cool, sexy mystique flows from every band member, while each in some way also maintains a relaxed silliness – Warriner and Keenan do the splits in tandem at one point, while stone faced and cool, both dig deep into the strings of their roaring guitars.

Apart from Liminal Bliss, the only two older songs are 2023’s Punch the Shark, and 2021’s Boundary Queen. The rest, in the same loud, tough style that Sweetie have built a following around, are from the band’s upcoming yet to be announced debut album. The new music is brilliant – the audience react to it with as much ecstasy and intensity as they would favourite classics.

Drums are fast, and simple; guitar riffs are high, buzzing and elastic. Lyrics tease; choruses are ecstatic. And throughout – a delicious glue binding the music together – the constant funky, swaggering bass is both joyful and hefty.

The night ends with a cover of Le Tigre’s 1999 Deceptacon. The tongue in cheek gibberish ‘bompalompalomps’, and ‘ramalamadingdongs’, contrasted with cool, blistering rock, fits perfectly with Sweetie’s sound. Coming together in broad smiles at the end, the four lean into their microphones and – over a simple comical riff – shout three times with emphasised accents, “see ya later! See Ya Later! SEE YA LATER!”

As the curtains close – again with a comical mechanical slowness – Keenan pokes her head through to face the chants for an encore. “We don’t have any more to play,” she laughs before disappearing behind the velvet. A groan echoes, quickly swallowed by Pleasure Club’s loud house music.

Resigned, people return to booths, the bar, the disco ball, and the pool table. Though, in the drunken chaos there is now some sense of uniformity. For the remainder of the night, the ensuing chatter will be all about Sweetie.