Harden up for Geelong show

ALTERNATIVE Australian punk rock band Hard-Ons will mark its 30th anniversary with a Geelong gig in June.
The group had a strong following in Geelong’s underground rock scene of the late ‘80s and ‘90s, playing to sweaty crowds at venues such as The Barwon Club.
The multicultural Sydney band put on its first show in July 1984, with the members then still in their teens.
Stephen Ahn, whose brother Ray is the band’s bassist, said the mix of members with Croatian, Sri Lankan and Korean backgrounds carved a niche playing at “impossible volume and velocity”.
He credited part of the Hard-Ons early success to Australian’s love of “underdog”.
“Another thing Australians love is somebody who has a red hot go. The Hard-ons were underdogs personified and they had a huge go,” Ahn said.
“Unburdened by any sense of prefabricated style nor scene-specific sound, the teenaged Hard-Ons let loose upon the bewildered and unsuspecting underground music scene with their previously unthinkable mix of punk, metal, garage, thrash and bubble-gum pop.”
Ahn said the band’s shows were still “wildly unpredictable action-packed affairs” three decades later.
The national anniversary tour would include original member Keish de Silva, making the band a four-piece instead of its usual on stage arrangement as a trio.
Original members Peter ‘Blackie’ Black and Ray would also play, alongside de Silva’s replacement, Murray Ruse.
Ahn said the band was looking forward to its first “and last” national tour since the Hard-Ons’ broke up in 1994, eventually reforming in 1997.
The tour arrives at The Wool Exchange on 13 June.