On a night of purely extreme music, fans witnessed some of Australia’s finest playing alongside grindcore talent from all over the globe with headliners Blood Duster leaving The Tote wanting more.
Starting off the experience was seeing the end of Dark Horse’s set who seemed to get a great response from the crowd compared to the last time I saw them earlier this year. Next Sewercide took the stage at The Bendigo Hotel thrashing out some of their brutal tunes as a last minute replacement for Festering Drippage.
I then found myself checking out the merch room that was set up at The Bendigo Hotel with records, cds and merch from each band before making my way to The Tote. Analkholic hit the stage with a naked frontman and countless technical difficulties with their fold backs and drum machine.
Back to The Bendigo Hotel with Split teeth who were chaotic from start to finish spitting out track after track with aggression and speed that the crowd ate up. Next up The Mung took the stage with their southern gore slam style, with the crowd really getting into it 2 songs in where I witnessed the first mosh pit of the day, playing tracks off of their two releases the band had fans cheering throughout the whole set.
By this point I had noticed both venues developing a stench that I could only put down to being the stench of grindcore. Over at The Tote, King Parrot obliterated the crowd with vocalist Matt Young constantly taking his performance to the floor as the rest of the band wreaked havoc on the stage.
Both Sete Star Sept and Fuck I’m Dead had the crowd in the palm of their hands as they played through some of the heaviest music of the night with the vocalist of Sete Star Sept Kae crowd surfing towards the end of their set.
Next up the crowd exploded as Rotten Sound played their second set of the night in what was becoming an increasingly hot and sticky venue, vocalist Keijo Niinimaa was riling up the crowd as they seemed to lose a bit of steam part way through their set, possibly due to the long day or possibly due to the fact that most of the punters had seen both of their sets.
Headlining the night was Blood Duster with a bit of a different spin, the band had both David Haley and Matt Rizzo playing drums throughout their whole set in sync which was quite interesting to see and amazing in terms of the skills it would take for the two to play in sync. The band played to a packed venue with vocalist Tony Forde jumping into the crowd and knocking down a good portion of the mosh pit. With the crowd going crazy throughout their whole set Blood Duster played songs from their whole catalogue and finished with fan favourite Drink, Fight, Fuck.
Witnessing Australian bands playing alongside these international artists really showed everyone the great talent that this country has with some of our own bands playing sets on par if not better than some of the international bands.This unique experience is one that was quite successful and should definitely happen again next year.
Photo by Wade Trevean