Onslaught of Sound @ ANU Bar,Canberra, (26/09/09)

Wed 30th Sep, 2009 in Gig Reviews

As Geelong celebrated another triumph and Canberra reverted back to icy cold winter on Saturday, metal fans warmed their souls with Onslaught of Sound at ANU Bar. Ten bands including Paindivision, Switchblade and Our Last Enemy from Sydney, converged on Canberra for an almighty night of heavy, headbanging tunes.

Doors opened at 3pm for metal-goers not interested in the Grand Final festivities with Blind Eyed Gods kicking off the show, fairly new to the live circuit, the boys who formed in 2008 have already got quite a dedicated following and some awesome support slots to boot. The metal madness continued into the afternoon with Friend or Enemy, Chud and Never Trust a Bunny.

The standout performance came from the Switchblade lads who, although were playing to a near empty ANU Bar, nearly had the paint and posters peeling from the walls. Having supported some awe-inspiring bands such as Machine Head, Trivium and Nevermore in the past, these guys demonstrated they’ve got the guts and the glory to play with the big boys of metal. Killing it on stage their performance was aggressive and punishing, their drummer, so forceful it sounded as though his kick pedal was about to burst through his kit.

After a knockout – and hard to beat – performance from Switchblade, metal monarchs Paindivision were ready and waiting. Now it’s possibly because there was a total of 30 people in the bar, which didn’t really inspire much atmosphere or excitement, or possibly they were taking the piss, but these guys were to metal what iSnack 2.0 is to Vegemite. They opened to Carl Orffs O Fortuna (you remember Carlton Draught’s Big Ad? Enough said?) with a light show in time with the music. Probably would have gone down better if they were Deathklok doing an arena show.

Making up the rest of the metal offensive was Code of Lies, Forgery and The Vaine adding a diverse range of heavy sounds. A great effort from organisers, although holding any event on grand final day is bound to cut your patronage in half. That said, the metal mini-festivals are emerging as popular events on the music calendars in Canberra, hopefully we’ll see more popping up in the coming months so that we can start to reclaim our title of metal capital of Australia.