Joining Avenged Sevenfold on their second Australian tour was Bullet For My Valentine. Although they were billed as the support band in some publications, Bullet cold quite easily have been the headlining act, if crowd response was anything to go by.

From the moment Bullet hit the stage the roar of the crowd was at a deafening volume, a level that would be maintained until the band left the stage sixty minutes later. From where I was standing, at the back of the Hordern Pavilion, you could actually see the steam rising from the desicated fans that were squashed hard up against the barricade.

Security frantically sprayed the young moshers of this sold-out show with water whilst the St. Johns Ambulance service waited left of stage and took away the ones that had become catatonic from dehydration.

First impressions of Bullet For My Valentine could leave you with the expectations that you were about to see some hybrid version of Metallica or Megadeth. But to say that Bullet is a copy of either one of these great metal bands couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even though there’s plenty of growl vocals and enough harmonised guitar solos to keep any budding air guitarist miming away, there’s also plenty of melodic choruses for fans to sing along with. And sing they did, as loud as possible. Singer/guitarist Matt Tuck even encouraged the crowd with the immortal rock – œn roll war cry, “Make some fuckin’ noise” but his request fell on deaf ears as the audience was already screaming and singing their lungs out.

Overall, Bullet For My Valentine delivered a set of truly inspired melodic metal. About the only criticism I could find, and I think that the legion of Bullet fans at the Hordern would agree, was that their set just wasn’t long enough. Maybe next time they grace our shores they’ll be the headlining act.

The lights went down to the sound of symphonic drones emanating from the stage, and what I first thought was a massive bass drum pounding with military precision somewhere down the back of the Hordern. This pounding then spread down both sides of the venue until we were completely surrounded by its thunder. It was then that I realized that the pounding was actually being generated by the three thousand or so fans in the stands that were stamping their feet in synchronicity.

This amazing moment then morphed into screams of excitement and painful dehydration as Avenged Sevenfold took to the stage with the opening track off their 2007 album, Critical Acclaim. With its multi layered vocals and time changes, Critical Acclaim is a particularly risky song to kick off a show with, but Avenge pulled it off flawlessly, performing every guitar note and vocal passage to perfection. In fact, if you closed your eyes, it sounded like their CD playing at an extreme volume.

Vocalist for this acclaimed act, M. Shadows, warmed up his vocal chords and the Sydney crowd with a guttural scream that would bring tears of reminiscence to the eyes of any death metaller. Not that there was too many of them present here tonight, what with the crowd being made up of mostly underage hard rockers, the kind that you might have seen at Eastern Creek in the summer of 92. Some things never change.

As the band was about to commence their second song, Afterlife, Synyster Gates began experiencing some guitar problems that his guitar tech couldn’t seem to isolate. These problems would continue throughout the next few song and paved the way for some funny spontaneous sledging between band members as they filled in time whilst Synyster’s guitar tech work feverishly to get his sound back on track.

Even with the ever present threat of guitar sound doom hanging over Synyster’s head, the guitarist played every speed scale and sweeping arpeggio with a virtuoso-ness I’d not seen on stage since Steve Vai. Having said that, Zacky Vengeance also deserves an inclusion in the guitarist hall of fame. Whilst choosing to supply the rhythm guitar for the band he also harmonized with Synyster on numerous occasions throughout the night, displaying awesome lead guitar capabilities.

The third song off the rank was Beast and the Harlot, off the City of Evil album, this song lent itself to some outstanding drumming courtesy of The Rev, who maintained a perfect double kick pulse whilst punctuating it with a barrage of tom and snare fills.

Whilst Synyster messed around with his guitar sound, Zacky armed himself with a acoustic guitar and jammed on AC/DC’s Back In Black. This acoustic breakdown lead the way into Seize The Day which also featured the vocal nuances of Johnny Christ, Avenged Sevenfold’s bassist who sung until M took over at the first chorus.

M’s performance on the night was nothing short of perfect. At times he reminded me of Axel Rose, circa 1987, minus the ridiculous vocal gymnastics and spandex. Throughout the entire night his powerful, yet melodic, pitch-perfect vocals cut through the mix like a chainsaw through a prom queen.

At the halfway point, and after being constantly beckoned by the audience to perform Walk by Pantera, M. Shadows finally gave in and looked to the crowd for volunteers. This had happened the night before at the Brisbane show and was a complete disaster as the three fans that climbed up onto the stage to sing, didn’t know the words.

M wasn’t gonna fall for that again, “You’d better know the fuckin’ words”, he commanded, pointing to one hopeful at the left of the stage, who then quietly crawled back into his hole. On the right of the stage, however, was a young metal head named Sam who was so sure he knew the words that M had security drag him out of the crowd and up on to the stage. After all the formalities were laid to rest the band attacked the opening riff of Walk. Da da…da da da…da..da da da….da..da da da. And Sam started singing…at the wrong time.

But he did recover, and he did know the words, at least up to the first chorus. He was then led to the side of the stage where he stayed for the rest of the show. Almost Easy saw Avenged Sevenfold make the art of melodic metal look easy. This song also contains an insane amount of vocal parts and harmonies all of which were performed without so much as a hick up.

The last song of the set was Unholy Confessions, which saw all the guitarists change instruments before diving into this metal anthem and driving the crowd to ecstatics one more time before leaving the stage. An encore of A Little Piece Of Heaven brought to an end what could be the biggest under-age show of 2008. Hats off also to the sound engineer and the Hordern Pavilion for delivering one of the best live sounds I’ve ever heard.

Overall, on stage this band had an energy I’d not seen since the 1987 Gunners show at the Entertainment Centre. And if Avenged Sevenfold can avoid the dysfunctional curse that seemed to plague G&R, there’s no reason why they can’t eclipse that hard rock super band.