The Go! Team
The Bakery, Northbridge
Friday May 13, 2011.

How quickly they grow up. One day a band is the toast of the town, the next they’re reeling from the backlash – and, as commercial nous replaces naivety and the drudgery of touring and promotion takes its toll, before you know it, they’re denying reports of a break-up.

Rumours that Briton-born rabble-rousing virtuosos The Go! Team would be calling it a day have been swirling since the beginning of this year, when founding member Ian Parton publicly announced that the band’s recently released third album Rolling Blackouts “may well be… the last The Go! Team record,” and that “it might be the last year we’re touring, certainly, the band [in their current line-up].” In the months that have passed, Parton & Co seem to be sticking with the decision to split – just last week, Parton reiterated in WA street press X-Press Magazine: “2011 could very well be the last year of The Go! Team.” Speaking to Canadian national music channel AUX, Parton and fellow band member Ninja went into even greater detail. “We all got married in a joint ceremony… and now we’re getting divorced and it’s as simple as that really. We’re all fighting over a prenup, so that’s where we’re at right now. Sorting out who’s going to get what. Lawyers are battling it out. We just got married too quick, really. Always marry for love.”

If Parton sounds unconcerned about splitting The Go! Team, there were plenty of punters who were anything but, who rocked up to rock out at The Bakery on Friday night to take in the final show of the band’s (presumably) final tour down under.

You could spend hours listing artists whose reputation would have been burnished had they made the tough decision to pack it in at the top of their game. There was a time, however, there might have been long odds on that being a decision The Go! Team would ever have to consider making, given that longevity never seemed likely in the first place. Certainly the album – Thunder, Lightening, Strike – that crashlanded them into the public consciousness suggested as much. In all its brilliant early-80s action theme songs-meets-vintage hip-hop glory, Parton’s let’s-muck-around-with-a-sampler project was hardly the stuff on which lengthy careers were based. As such, most of the group’s 11 year career, it seems, has been devoted to debates over whether it remains relevant; conversations that have clouded their music and dimmed its impact somewhat.

Yet despite dwindling critical success, the sextet have remained consistently popular with fans. As such the atmosphere on Friday night is somewhere between joyous wake and dance party funeral—the small room filled to the brim with hipster teens, their parents and grandparents alike; all who had come to pay their respects to the band that Pitchfork recently described as “party-rock veterans.”

Ostensibly here to promote Rolling Blackouts MC Ninja announces early on that they won't be playing many tunes from the new record, which seems fine with the audience. The desire to hear brand new songs is amply catered for by the handful they do play, of which 'Apollo Throwdown', a roaring, punkish tune set to a backdrop of horn breaks and scratch effects, and congenially melodic single 'Buy Nothing Day', are terrific. Another highlight from the new collection comes in the kitschy ‘60s-inspired ditty 'Secretary Song', on which Kaori Tsuchida takes on lead vocals, her wide-eyed innocence sweetening the anti-work anthem and providing a nice contrast to Ninja’s enthusiasm and fire.

Punchy and ornate all at once, Sam Dook and Jamie Bell, on keyboards and bass respectively, set a glowing mood, which drummer Chi Fukami Taylor intensely propelled  time and time again. But while the other five members may do all the heavy lifting, deftly slamming home rhythm after propulsive rhythm, it is Ninja’s in-your-face barking that sells the songs. The subtleties of Parton’s lyrics – the self-deprecation and archness – may be lost in the melee, but she’s a compelling cheerleader, getting hoarse and sweaty as she chants the staccato choruses to 'The Power Is On' and 'Ladyflash'. Without her, The Go! Team would still be tight—with her they are stars.

Tonight is, depending on how you looked at it, a relentless dance party, a concert for completists, or the beginning of the end. For despite the all-inclusive joyous mentality accompanying their 90-minute set, an eerie hint of finality looms over the night. As appropriate an epitaph as Parton could write for his singular band, The Go! Team sign off with an expectedly positive flourish: “We knew you were here / We will come back / We’re up, down, all around / And we’re doin’ our thing / We’ll do it again!” runs the lyrics of second encore 'Keys To The City'. They sound like a band facing the future confidently, and given the records The Go! Team leave behind, one can’t really blame them.

If indeed this is the end – many a band has been known to dissemble and reassemble – tonight’s performance more than proves the band will leave on the highest of notes. While one could argue that the tunes of Proof of Youth and Rolling Blackouts do lack their predecessor’s startling sense of mapping out new territories, even in confining itself to “doing what The Go! Team do” sonically, the bands recent work still hits the mark.

Breaking up is hard to do - but sometimes, it’s also the right thing to do. It’s may be an often bitter time (sometimes more so for the fans then the band members themselves), but it can also be one of renewal, a triumphant moment of independence and a celebration of personal freedom. If The Go! Team’s worthy reputation is augmented by the brevity of their existence, then perhaps we should let them go after all.

Jennifer Peterson-Ward