[...]

Jet's tight, blistering stage form was certainly a refreshing antidote to the Vines' ramshackle slacker approach when they first started turning significant heads in Melbourne last year. But it must be kind of uncomfortable when the ostensibly lesser of two bands, from the same country and the same record label, play the headliners under the table every night.

"I wouldn't say that," Chris Cester says carefully. "Maybe if I was a little bit more naive, before this tour, I definitely would have said something like that. But when you go on tour with a band you find out shit that you didn't know beforehand.

"The Vines are a different kind of band. I think the exciting thing about them is the X factor. You never really know what's gonna happen. Sometimes it's a blinder, sometimes it's not so good, sometimes it's really funny.

"I think Craig (Nicholls, the Vines' singer) is a really funny guy. If you see 'em play every night, you start to understand that. A lot of people get frustrated with the way he throws the show sometimes and sings in that mock voice or whatever. To me it's just funny now. I just laugh, and I think he laughs too."

Speaking of funny, how about the Living End playing first? Sure they've had their troubles, but nobody who's seen the hottest Australian export of the late '90s tear up a stage in the past year could call them a warm-up act.

"It must be weird for them," Cester agrees. "It must be very strange to come and play under bands that have been together for a lot less time. But Jet and the Vines both signed American record deals. I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that we frog-leaped them over here."

[...]