Story of the Year, Saosin @Billboard, Melbourne(19/06/2010)

Mon 21st Jun, 2010 in Gig Reviews

If the success of a live performance is measured purely by the height of the jumps from the excited audience, then you can forget about Radiohead, AC/DC or Muse, Story Of The Year are the greatest live act on the planet to date. Propagating their brand of densely guitared, pop inspired metal melodies, SOTY take to the Billboard stage intent on causing a small riot, and a mid air one at that.

Filling the lead support act, Saosin (pronounced Say-oh-Sin, apparently) sound like a brand of rice wine vinegar and have a comparable dynamic; acidic and heart burning. Playing to an already packed venue, the band lack nothing in passion or intensity; visibly expending gargantuan amounts of energy as they shred through teen-friendly ‘screamo’ soundbites. As a result of their efforts, the quality of the music suffers a little as the band push their limits, but when they have in their arsenal a number as anthemic and well received as You’re Not Alone, the musical portrayal becomes largely academic.

Expanding on the successes of their slower sing-along arrangements, Saosin deliver punchy rage-filled numbers that get the crowd jumping and more often than not bouncing imaginary basketballs in a definitive mass dance move. Lead singer Cove Reber may not be the original founder/figure head that Anthony Green was (Green left the band disenchanted in 2004), but his screeching vocal is a good fit for the bands overall dynamic. Occasionally reminiscent of an eponymous era Alexisonfire, Saosin’s live shows might benefit from a heavier reliance on their powerful anthems, peppered with the more visceral numbers.

Seasoned performers on the emotional hardcore circuit, Story Of The Year well know the importance of both an anthem filled set and a dramatic entrance. Beginning shrouded in smoke to the eerie chiming of the child song from new album The Constant’s opener The Children Sing, SOTY declare their mission statement early and don’t let up for the full performance. Delivering record-perfect power chords over bombastic beats from the rhythm section, the band whip the crowd into a frenzy before the first track has even ended, the vocals pitch-perfect and cleaner than most in the genre.

If their intention is to deliver a musical re-creation as close to the record as possible, then they succeed superlatively, not a bum note or dropped lyric to be found. Dan Marsala’s impassioned singing is high in the mix, a tactically sound move as the band sells itself on it’s heart-wrenching smithery connecting with it’s emotionally charged fan base. Even more impressive is how obediently his commands for the audience to jump are carried out, especially considering the sheer number of times he asks. No-one is quite sure how they managed to slip the trampolines into the moshpit, but when old tracks like And The Hero Will Drown are dropped unsuspectingly into the mix, the guys onstage disappear behind an airborne knot of flailing limbs and hair.

Motoring through the majority of the set littered with ‘jump the fuck up’s and ‘we’re story of the fuckin’ year!’s, SOTY utilise all the strengths of the tracks from their 4 similarly themed albums to deliver a grandiose performance that looks to be as much fun for the band as it is for the crowd. Garnering much of the material from heaviest album Page Avenue and most successful LP In The Wake Of Determination, guitarists Ryan Phillips and Philip Sneed are kept busy producing slabs of muted riffage and breaking solos as in Ghost Of You And I, allowing the other members of the band to enjoy themselves.

The set exudes a great sense of fun, not least with the arrival of ‘Todd’ onstage, an avid fan who managed to break through security last tour around, and repeats the feat once more to unleash an awkward 2 minutes shaking hands with band followed with a mis-timed stage dive as the band launch into fan favourite, Anthem Of Our Dying Day. Marsala et al are obviously enjoying the excitement of the crowd and take a little time to deride the under-18 gig they’d played earlier in the day while they stroke the collective moshpit ego. Even finding the time to play an impromptu cover of the opening to The Deftones’ My Own Summer , SOTY’s greatest success is being able to maintain their musical integrity while performing simultaneous speaker to stage leaps and aping spinal tap guitar wielding.

Exiting after a venue-wide circle pit accompanies set closer Is This My Fate?, He Asked Them, only the omission of famous single We Don’t Care Anymore comes as a surprise from the performance. As a brief, but not whole-hearted criticism, it could be levelled that Story Of The Year lack some of the more organic elements of their peers, focussing on stage charisma and audience interaction rather than extolling the passionate, fiery nature of their music. Having said that, the footprints now permanently indented onto the Billboard dance floor tell their own story of how much of this gig was a success.

CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM THE NIGHT HERE