I left home early to attend this gig: partly from anticipation and partly because I hadn’t been to the East Brunswick Club before. After driving around Lygon Street for 20 minutes searching I found it. I walked in, handed over my ticket, went to the stage area to find only six other people there, four of whom were in the opening band The Cobra Massive. I chatted to Snowman’s sound technician for a while and the crowd started to grow.

At 8:40 The Cobra Massive got on stage. They played a quick five song set which just didn’t seem to go for long enough. In the end they only played 20 minutes out of a 45 minute allotted time. Throughout their set I was amazed with their drummer Vaughan Mossop. He hit those skins with 110% dedication and was really the backbone of the band. Naoya Kikuchi, the bass and keyboard player was also a great performer: leading into and out of songs perfectly with his keys and somehow managing to play bass all at the same time. I had a chat with his parents during the performance (the first they had been to) and they were very proud of him. All in all a pretty solid set. I recommend checking these guys out.

Just before Snowman came on the crowd had almost reached full capacity. I was glad to see there were several other people who had trekked to the show alone. After a good wait the curtain was pulled back and Snowman appeared in all there glory. After a few tune ups on their instruments semi front man Joe McKee started to show with ballad like The Black Tide before really getting into the set with Cocaine Goldrush. It was here that I realised the sound of the band live is fantastic. Each instrument can be heard clearly and I can honestly say that the vocals are crisp and understandable. To say it bluntly, Snowman sound AWESOME!

They proceed to play all of the songs off their debut self titled album bar The Curse. Sadly, nothing was played from their previous EP Zombies On The Airwaves of Paris. Noticeable standouts include Smoke & Mirrors, You Are A Casino and the tribal sounding The Last Train Out of Town, during which, Indonesian born Andy Citawarman receives many cheers from the crowd for his bellowing screams and chants.

The only crowd interaction between band and crowd was when Andy detailed to the crowd ‘that there was only one song left to play’, ‘it’s been a great tour’, and ‘we will be back soon’. I can only hope that they are announced for the Big Day Out.

Snowman closed with the epic Wormwood, for the 10 or 11 minutes they played this song the crowd was in awe. It was stunning. As the last notes were played the sound that the 200 strong crowd made was deafening. Andy Citawarman and drummer Ross DiBlasio quickly went into some sort of screamo heavy metal hybrid before launching into the energetic Shake Your Brains: this song ended with more praise from the crowd and the band thanking us for coming out. But it was us who should be thanking them for putting on such a good show.