Parkway Drive, The Warriors,No Apologies, Blkout! @Amplifier Bar, Perth(20/10/2007)

Tue 23rd Oct, 2007 in Gig Reviews

- œShort, fast, loud’, to borrow Triple J’s phrase, is the perfect way to describe the carnage and chaos that a sold out Amplifier Bar welcomed on Saturday night. Amps never disappoints as a venue for the dynamics of this type of live music and with a capacity crowd to provide further acoustic insulation, no one was going to be going home without a severe case of tinnitus. WA has a thriving hardcore scene so it was no surprise that when heavy hitters Parkway Drive announced a show with American stars The Warriors, the response was massive. The line to get in stretched all the way down the Amplifier alley before the doors had even opened and there were many sullen faced fans, who had missed out on tickets, attempting a last ditch effort to coax a ticket away from someone at a higher price. Not many seemed willing to cooperate and rightly so because this was a show not to be missed, especially for the ridiculously cheap price of $20 (to put it in perspective, parking across the road was $15) which is unheard of in this age of massive festivals.

Opening act Blkout! showcased what West Aussie hardcore has to offer and did not disappoint. Blasting out a collection of songs from their recently released self titled EP, the lads, who looked bloody young, proved they are definitely a local act to pay attention to.

Following Blkout! came Parkway Drive’s labelmates, No Apologies. The Sydney locals delivered some solid, power riff driven live tracks which appeared to please their fans no end and no doubt gained them a whole lot of new ones. There wasn’t one head in the room which they didn’t have nodding along to their works. A definite highlight was the title track from their latest album, Survival, which had a riff that sounded like it was straight from the Dimebag Darrell book of knowledge and was lapped up by the ever growing crowd. Vocalist Pete Abordi was as Aussie as they come in between songs and seemed to genuinely appreciate those who had made the effort to watch the band play.

It was a keen and wound up crowd who greeted the much anticipated Warriors after No Apologies played and they delivered a disappointingly short but ferocious set. Performing a mix of songs from all three of their highly impressive releases, they proved why THEY were the band a lot of the crowd were there to see. The pit below them was a frenzy of arms and bodies from start to finish and no doubt resulted in some soreness the next day but that’s all part of the fun! In a great example of the unexpected surprises of live shows, Winston from Parkway Drive joined them on stage for a brutalized rendition of Slings and Arrows, this only added to what was fastly becoming a standout show. Their new songs sounded flawless and their performance of War Is Hell’s, Set the Stage, incited an anthemic crowd chant-along which provided the ideal compliment to the songs anarchic theme. To close the set they unveiled yet another surprise on the crowd by performing a cover of Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade. With RATM’s impending arrival on our shores, this was thoroughly enjoyed by the crowd and capped off an amazing display from a truly high quality hardcore act. Here’s hoping they return to our shores to play their own headlining show in the near future.

Parkway Drive have risen to become not only the most popular hardcore act in Australia but also to one of the premier acts on the international circuit. They achieve more and more popularity each time they tour and one only needs to bear witness to one of their live shows to understand why. By the time they were due to take the Amplifier stage the room was packed shoulder to shoulder all the way back to the bar. Claustrophobia was not an issue though as all attention was focused straight on the event at hand. It wasn’t long before the boys from Byron unleashed their ferocity and blasted into opener The Sirens’ Song, which sent the room into a frenzy, matching the chaotic construction of the track.

The Parkway juggernaut only gathered more momentum as the set went on and it was evident the highly receptive crowd were not going to take a backward step until the show was done and dusted. Bodies were flying off the stage, off the bar table in the middle of the room and wherever else it was possible to get elevation. Parkway debuted a lot of their new tracks on this night and it seemed the crowd had not stopped playing the new album on their cd players or ipods since its release. New songs such Boneyard, Dead Man’s Chest and Carrion received just as much response as their established ones and it was a credit to the fanbase and their devotion to the band. The crowd was never going to let them leave until Smoke Em If Ya Got Em was played and after a vocal chant of – œone more, one more’, the crowd got what they wanted. It is a song which never loses its appeal in a live setting. The intimate setting of the Amplifier Bar always makes for a fun and brutally friendly hardcore show and Parkway sure know how to take advantage of it. Good Times.