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It seems ages since someone put a bit of party into metal and hard rock. For a while there shit was starting to get way too serious. Lyrics that screamed “I hate you, you ruined my life, I’m gonna cut myself with this broken glass/razor/knife cause I’m starved of attention and my eyeliner is stinging my eyes” . Thankfully Buffalo 5 piece Every Time I Die are bringing back the good times god-dammit; well they’re certainly getting some recognition for it nowadays since forming in 1998. Bringing the riffs, the clever, witty lyrics and of course the part-fuckin’-ay. And what better place to bring the ruckus, Friday night at our very own Amplifier?

Whoa. Did Alleged re-form? Is it 2001? One would think so, with the majority of Into The Sea members having cut their teeth on the local scene in the aforementioned metalcore band.
That and ex-Alleged screamer Delby gracing the stage front and center schooling all in stage presence 101. It was amazing to see how much the band’s reception changed with a fill-in lead throat, and one with such passion, transforming Into The Sea from a metalcore outfit to a melodic hardcore band. Delby looked like an ADD kid that skipped his evening dexies, pacing the stage, shaking his head and pumping his fists in the air. The rest of the band just put their heads down, head banged a bit and held it all together with tight riffing and even tighter drums. A great opener, leaving devoted scenesters pondering the future of Delbs and Into The Sea.

The next homegrown talent (well Australian anyway) was the raw, more traditional hardcore edged 50 Lions, led by Oscar McCall, brother of Winston, leader of Parkway Frickin’ Drive nonetheless. Greeting the crowd with a heavily tattooed torso McCall pummelled the crowd with a barrage of core, moving bodies in the mosh and increasing the humidity to 99.99%. It wasn’t enough for him tho, “Hardcore to me is all about crowd involvement, so lets get this shit going!” McCall announced. Righty-ho sir! the stage divers seemed to say. Certainly my good man! The front row lyric memorisers humoured. “Everyone Punch Somebody In the Face!” McCall yelled at the crescendo of a mosh riff.

Um. Sure!

The crowd continued enthusiastically minus the face-punching part. 50 Lions sure have carved a niche for themselves, veering away from the modern, trendy metal-tinged hardcore and keeping a li’ more old school. You only had to look at guitarist Elmsy’s Madball shirt for evidence. A great asset to Aussie hardcore and Aussie music in general.

A brief sound check and we were off on a Roman Holiday from Every Time I Die’s latest release, New Junk Aesthetic. It was as if your favourite people just rocked up at your house with a carton of piss, all of a sudden they’re just there, on your front step with the gift that keeps giving and a devious smile. The ultimate bro-mantic moment. They don’t stop there tho, they run inside your house, throw on some Motley Crue and start doing funnels in your lounge room. It’s a Friday night!

The lads continued the fun with The Marvelous Slut, new bassist Josh Newton and the crowd filling out Greg Pucaito’s parts. “Good to be here, hopefully this next song will get you singing along and a-movin’ ya feet” Keith Buckley said with a mock southern twang. The crowd’s feet certainly did move; the boy dusting off Bored Stiff with that all familiar obscene line. Stage divers became more and more prominent, unnoticed to most of the band bar guitarist Jordan Buckley. Drunken punters bumping into him on their way to take off, causing him to miss a note or something, judging by his pissed off mug. “Keep these stage dives coming motherfuckers!” brother Keith encouraged.

“So it’s the last show of the tour, and I though that Brisbane were good, Melbourne too, but you guys…you guys are the best show of the tour, that’s for sure!” Aw, shucks Keith, you’re just saying that. Who can really tell anyway, but they seemed genuine so the crowd took it.

What happened next was a bit funny really. Some buffoon rushed the stage, knocking over Jordan’s amp, sending it crashing to the side wall. Jordan then grabbed said dude, threw him to the ground while Keith punched him. You can see that this brotherly combo had done it all before. While the scuffle continued, some other eager punter grabbed the mic and continued Keith’s vocals. Cheers fella. Keith then waited for the lad to finish his 10 seconds of fame, nodded in acknowledgement and grabbed the mic back.

“What the fuck!” Keith yelled post song. “Get the fuck out of here man! This isn’t about you, Kanye West! Seriously we’re not playing till that guy gets the fuck out! Why would you ruin such a good time?” This all seems a little contradictory given he was encouraging people to stage dive in the first place. Most of the moshers were wasted drunk anyway, you can’t expect them to have much control over their bodies.

Several other incidents occurred with stage divers throughout the set, one memorable one being two fans encouraged to stay onstage by Keith till the next breakdown started. ” The next song starts off a little gnarly so something tells me you’ll be out of the public eye pretty quick.” Keith exclaimed. It was a good time for everyone and the previous altercation was soon forgotten in the midst of the party vibe.

The boys smashed through a great set list covering their history nicely, polishing it off with The New Black and We’rewolf. Then that was it, they said thanks, down tooled and got off stage. No encore’s here, they thought the main set was good enough to satisfy most if not all ETID fans. And they were right, if they weren’t there was always New Noise by Refused blaring through the PA post set that was greeted with a roar of approval from the crowd filing out to the beer garden.

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