Rum Jungle took the stage on Sept. 22 at The Bottleneck, rupturing beautifully underneath the colorful lights on the stage. Hailing from Newcastle, New South Wales, just two hours out of Sydney, Australia, they bestowed their setlist chock-full of energetic indie rock songs upon the Lawrence crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon my early arrival, I took it upon myself to head into their show completely blind. However, I did have a good idea of what I was in for. As the hour passed, college-aged concertgoers, many bearing colors and sparkles on their outfits, conversed happily with one another while waiting for the show. The pre-show music was a compilation of a few artists, such as The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, and I turned that into reference points for what I thought Rum Jungle would sound like, reminding me of bands like Cage The Elephant and Gorillaz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After about an hour or so, the show began with the local band, Limestone, as an opener. Following the pre-show music, I thought I\u2019d be in for music within a similar vein, but they immediately began with grittiness and action that defied those expectations. I would best describe their music as 1990s- and 2000s-esque power pop, alternative rock and pop rock a la Paramore, with a dash of post-grunge thrown in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was driven by distorted guitars and the most energetic drumming within a 50-mile radius. They made no reliance on heavy stage effects (minus the fog machine at the beginning) and focused their energy on the forefront. Some standouts were their synchronized headbanging moments within the songs, which I thought were quite amusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their debut of an unreleased song, titled \u201cHold On,\u201d might take the cake as my favorite song of theirs from the night. The song\u2019s haunting yet crushing atmosphere gave me heavy Flyleaf and Evanescence vibes. The crowd matched their passion quite perfectly, with some screaming out and singing along to their lyrics as if it was etched onto their eyelids. My only gripe was that I felt that the vocal mixing was a bit washed out, but the lead singer definitely made up for it with her energy. Limestone, I was not familiar with your game, but I am now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Limestone set the tone for the night, Rum Jungle finally brought themselves out on the stage. They quickly presented themselves as performers that knew how to rock the stage. Following Limestone’s dynamic pop-rock sound, Rum Jungle carried a slightly more subdued sound, one that I found reminiscent of 1990s jangle pop and post-punk revival with a modern indie rock spin. The best word I could muster up to describe their sound is \u201cbreezy.\u201d Each song felt like a fresh summer breeze, and I found myself irritated that I wasn\u2019t tapped in beforehand because their songs would\u2019ve fit extremely well in my summer playlist. Some specific songs that stuck with me were \u201cWasting Your Time,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Be A Stranger,\u201d and \u201cNotice,\u201d the latter of which probably takes the cake as my top song of theirs thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The band had numerous points in time that struck as memorable. At one point, a lengthy guitar solo enchanted the crowd, spanning roughly around four minutes, which then immediately led into the next song. They also made sure to connect with the audience, joking throughout the night with the fact that this was all on a Tuesday evening. Alongside the four-minute-long guitar solo, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of guitar solos sprinkled throughout the songs, all the more reason for me to keep them on my radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite not being my usual style of show, I still felt a sense of community being built in the worlds that these bands carefully crafted. Whether an audience member was a devoted fan, casual listener, or completely unsuspecting of what they were in for, by the end of the show, they were guaranteed to leave the show knowing their time was well spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Rum Jungle took the stage on Sept. 22 at The Bottleneck, rupturing beautifully underneath the colorful lights on the stage. Hailing from Newcastle, New South Wales, just two hours out of Sydney, Australia, they bestowed their setlist chock-full of energetic indie rock songs upon the Lawrence crowd. Upon my early arrival, I took it upon myself to head into their show completely blind. However, I did have a good idea of what I was in for. As the hour passed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33333,"featured_media":86984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8774,8747,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concert-coverage","category-concert-reviews","category-featured-on-kjhk"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_9378.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33333"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86987,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86983\/revisions\/86987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}