The Army of Darkness Tour @ANU Bar, Canberra, 15/05/2004

Sun 16th May, 2004 in Gig Reviews

It was a cold Canberra night when the bands on the Army of Darkness Tour Came to visit. I was looking forward to seeing tonight’s line-up having not seen any Aussie metal since The Butterfly Effect visited last month.

I then remembered promising to see one of my friends’ bands play at the Pot Belly this evening, so I quickly skipped off to see them. By the time they’d finished and I’d gotten to the ANU, I’d missed opening band 8 Foot Sativa and Frankenbok were a few songs into their set. Tonight’s line-up was a full-scale metal line-up and the fans out on this cold Canberra were ready for it. As it was such a cold night, the turn out was a little disappointing, with the ANU Bar being set up with the stage perpendicular to the refectory.

Frankenbok’s set was a pretty straight down the line metal set that didn’t stray to far from what you’d expect from a metal band. They had the traditional metal band lyrics, including the delightful “FucKenk, Ntz”. I think we can all guess what the lyrics to that one consisted of. The highlight for me was when the Bryan Adams cheesy, eighties, pop rock hit, “Run to You” was dropped in mid track.

Next up on stage was Full Scale. I’d never seen them live and had no idea what to expect. Lead singer Ezekeil Ox walked out on stage and began chiding those members of the crowd who were up the back of the bar playing pool and air hockey. They kicked into their first track and I was impressed. They were different. Ox was like a gangly monkey running around on stage revving up the crowd.

Before kicking off their second track, Ox had another go at getting everyone up the front; a few more people came up. The band kicked off “Smiles” and he decided to take matters into his own hands. Leaping the barrier, microphone in hand, he made his way through the crowd, past the mixing desk and up to the back where the pool players were, performing right to them. This brought them down the front, but he decided that he’d finish the track right in the middle of the pit. From here they kicked onto “The Rapture”. What impressed me most about Full Scale was their range. They never sounded samey. Punching through another few tracks, they played both “The Sickness” and “Sixteen Today”. Before playing “Sixteen Today” Ox explained that the song was about all the kids which the Australian Government keeps in detention. Full Scale are definitely a band that aren’t afraid of being political. They concluded their set with the awesome “56”. These guys blew me away; playing a set that was diverse, what I’d like to call New Nu-Metal.

Sunk Loto had a mighty hard task following these guys.The first time I saw Sunk Loto, they weren’t called Sunk Loto. This was when they played on the first Australian Vans Warped Tour. When I saw them first time round I wasn’t overly impressed with their live set, it was a bit paint by numbers Nu-Metal. I was hoping that when I saw them this time round, five years later that their sound may have progressed. I was unfortunately disappointed. Tonight’s show really didn’t push my buttons. After seeing the diversity presented by Full Scale, Sunk Loto’s set sounded fairly pedestrian. Front man Jason Brown’s best vocal efforts were on those tracks where he wasn’t screaming into his microphone trying to sound like Chino from the Deftones. The songs blended together, and it was really only the slower songs which gave the set some definition. These tracks were played to perfection. The band was tight, and the fans who came to the show all got into it, and had a really good time.

All in all I’d give the gig three signs of the devil out of five.