Review: Jack Price
Pictures: Ophelia Symons
Thursday is the new Sunday, and church is in session at Brisbane‘s The Brightside. As always the dress code is black on black and enough coloured hair to scare your grandma.
Brisbane‘s very own metalcore quartet Headwreck were charged with beginning tonight’s festivities. The boys are always out to impress with their refreshing and youthful approach to the genre, and they achieved what they set out to do tonight.
With the crowd warmed up and the cloud cover threatening the carpark stage area, ALT. took to the stage with a synthetic symphony broken by drummer James Mullins interrupting the eerie peacefulness with some crashing symbols before frontman Daniel Cullen-Richards introduced the band. The Adelaide boys sprung into action with Insubordinate and The Great Depression beginning their 7 song set.
“We’ve broken the stage for the second time on this tour” announced Cullen-Richards as they seemed to temporarily experience some technical issues, the crowd was unphased and patiently awaited the next track.
Back into gear, ALT. continued with A.D.D., Back To Earth and Wraith, the crowd lapping up every moment. ALT. have definitely become a favourite up here and are sure to return for a longer set at some point soon, hopefully! Closing the set, a track usually performed with Void Of Vision‘s Jack Bergin, Apep, was a definite crowd pleaser.
As Bon Jovi‘s Living On A Prayer came to its end from PA, an uproar of cheers erupted from the crowd as the UK‘s Caskets took to the stage. The Brits opened with Guiding Light, a track that has amassed just shy of 5 million streams on Spotify since its release last year. In perfect form despite the immense amount of travel they had done recently, Caskets hit the stage hard!
When guitarist Benji Wilson said in our interview earlier this evening that Caskets live are a much heavier sound, he was not lying. Guitarist Craig Robinson‘s backing screams offer a stunning contrast to the mellifluous vocals of frontman Matthew Flood, while the guitars and percussion are down-tuned, punchy and aggressive.
For the first time to our land down under, the band is visibly touched by the crowd’s support, Flood stopping between songs to run the sleeve of his hoodie across his eyes. This show, this tour, has been an obvious milestone that has proved to be a touch overwhelming and unimaginable for the boys from Leeds. This was confirmed by the thanks they gave to the attendees of tonight’s show multiple times throughout the set.
The band treated their fans to Too Late from the upcoming album Reflections (out August 11), pumping the crowd up enough to form a wall of death midway through the song.
Finishing their time on stage with the massive single, Glass Heart, Matthew joined the crowd at the barrier for the last chorus, closing the set in a beautiful tender moment between the frontman and fans.
Okay, here we go. From the moment the euphoric trance intro for Dopamine Freestyle started, Windwaker‘s Liam Guinane took the stage screaming “Brisbane! It is so good to see you.”, shit was about to go down.
With so much energy on stage, from guitarist Jesse Crofts and bassist/backing vocalist Indey Salvestro‘s punishment they were delivering to the instruments, to Chris Lalic‘s precision drum work, it was almost impossible to find a stand out performer. DJ Connor Robins, shirtless under a black blazer, was a man possessed. Headbanging, dancing, kicking and going absolutely ballistic between playing his parts like a musical surgeon.
Despite suffering and feeling under the weather, Liam‘s vocals were perfect. If he hadn’t had said he was unwell, you would never have guessed it, belting out screams and growls, reaching the highest of clean vocals all the while dancing and fully enjoying the atmosphere they had created.
The Rain marked the mid section of the set, Guinane addressed the crowd with “Brisbane! I’ve got one question for you! Do you want some more?!”. Brisbane did indeed want some more.
Trenches, Nighthawk and Sirens came next, the band not faltering for an instant. With the set drawing closer to its end, Superstitious Fantasy was the closing track. While it was a perfect performance to end on, the fans of the Melbourne metalcore band weren’t completely satisfied yet, calling out for one last song as the band departed the stage.
They got what they asked for as they all returned to screaming and cheers from the pit. And what they got was Beautiful. How Liam is able to perform like he did tonight live is almost otherworldly. It was, in fact, beautiful.
With tonight’s acts all wrapped up, the sea of black clad fans spewed from the gate of The Brightside again, off to reflect on tonight’s amazing show of local talent, international visitors and homegrown awesomeness, and prepare for the agonising mission that is getting up for normal life on Friday morning.
