This year has been an incredible year for metalheads in Australia, and the trend in major international acts touring the country looks set to continue for at least the next six months. One of the best shows of the year has been Napalm Death, whom last toured Australia eleven years ago in 1996. All those years ago it was also a time of a huge number of international tours.
Touted as ‘the undisputed godfathers of grind’, Napalm Death continue to prove that they deserve the title. Opening with the comment, ‘If you don’t know where you are, or in case you’ve been dragged here under duress, we are *Napalm Death*’, the band blew us all away. It would be amazing if anybody was there under duress, because Fowler’s was absolutely jammed, wall-to-wall, with enthusiastic grind fans.
Having been together for twenty-six years this year, the baby-faced Brits played an intensely energetic set comprised of material spanning the career of their band. From debut album Scum to a cover of the Dead Kennedys track Nazi Punks, to material from their latest album Smear Campaign, the hour-and-a-quarter length set was blistering, brutal, and utterly intense.
Amazingly energetic, frontman Mark Greenaway never stopped moving from the time the band took the stage to the time they left, or during the three encores they blasted out before the end of the show. He is also one of the most polite frontmen that I have ever seen play and interacts with an excited crowd with an ease borne of so many years of playing. As political as ever, Napalm exhorted us to always think, to keep an enquiring mind; told us that religion causes ‘fucking nothing but violence and problems’, and at the end of their shortest track, told us that we’ve got to ‘fucking concentrate’. Perhaps the best comment was that they will definitely be back.
The supporting acts for the show were also brilliant. Local act Captain Cleanoff were first up, about ten minutes after the doors opened. The fact that they were on so early disappointed those who thought that there would be some shitty band playing first and whom therefore turned up late! Captain Cleanoff were a great start to the night, blistering through their set to enthusiastic punters.
They were followed by Blood Duster, a band whom I hadn’t seen play since 1994—a shameful admission given how often they play in Adelaide! Opening with Pornstorestiffi, the enormously popular Blood Duster played tracks from their entire repertoire, saving the classic Derek until the crowd was screaming for it right near the end of the set.
It is rare to have a show that is so f**kng good right from the moment the doors open, to have bands complement each other so well, each of an incredibly high quality, and to have punters turn up as much for the supports as for the headlining act. The sooner Napalm Death come back to our shores, the better: let’s not have to wait another eleven years to see something like this again! It’s a big claim, but I have to say that this was definitely the show of the year.
