Words by Kyra-Jade Coombs
Pix by Charlyn Cameron
Not even leaving at 3:30pm for a 5:30pm show got us to the gig on time. Three cheers for Friday afternoon Brisbane traffic. After finally parking the car, the boss man and I finally got into Riverstage just in time to catch the end of We Came As Romans, who were doing their part in warming up the crowd for tonight’s entertainment. Being a fan of Amity, I have no doubt you’re familiar WCAR considering they have been around for a hot minute. I vaguely remember having a poster of them from Blunt Magazine when I was a teenager, although of course they sported the token side fringes back then. From what we saw the crowd loved their set, bouncing around and giving them circle pits.
Riverstage was sold out and there was no shortage of metalheads ascending their way all around the stage, awaiting the next band, Ice Nine Kills. The best part about this venue is that wherever you end up standing, you can still see the stage… and on soft grass instead of concrete for a welcome change.
Now, I thought had a good idea of what Ice Nine Kills were about and capable of, all that went out the window immediately. Holy shit guys… from the second their props started getting wheeled out on stage, (clear bags filled with bloody body parts and more), my attention was 100% focused on the stage and I couldn’t wait for their show to begin. A huge vintage ‘INK TV’ took over the big screen let us know the show was about to begin, and they started playing Rainy Day, accompanied by zombie actors. The crowd was already going insane for these guys, judging by the number of INK shirts in the crowd I knew it was going to be one hell of a show.
After a few songs, they broke into their cover of Katrina and the Waves’ Walking On Sunshine, released with Reel Big Fish a few months ago. Basically, amid all the blood, gore and horror, suddenly there was this cute as heck little sun bouncing around the stage in a comical manner with scenes from Jaws on the big screen behind them. You couldn’t help but smile and bounce along as your brain is being comprehending what the fuck is going on. Perfection.
Directly after the lighthearted cover, they ripped straight into the live debut of their newest hit, A Work of Art. Art the Clown’s twin brother made an appearance on stage, running around causing absolute chaos. At the height of his reign of terror Art took centre stage proudly displaying his freshly cut out fetus and swinging it around by its’ umbilical cord to a cheering yet clearly sadistic crowd that actually has a sense of humour. If you haven’t seen the film clip to this song, go watch it now on YouTube and come back…
The whole time Ice Nine Kills played, there was something to catch your eye and hook you in. I could watch their set 5 times over and still find something well thought out and perfectly placed into their show. I’ll finish by mentioning that all the bells and whistles aside, the band alone can captivate the audience. Their musicianship was clear as day, everyone was excited and energetic about what they were doing. I was so impressed by what I was lucky enough to witness. From memory I can’t remember a support band being cheered on for an encore, but that’s exactly what happened tonight, and I couldn’t help but wonder how Amity was going to top this performance, or rather, experience.
We now arrive at our headliners, The Amity Affliction. I want to start by saying that I jumped on the Amity bandwagon from their EP High Hopes, I want to say 200/2008? Severed Ties and Youngbloods then soundtracked my teenage years and still have them on rotation these days, being so fond of the memories tied to these tracks. Fast forward to Let the Ocean Take Me and I liked it, but didn’t hold that same passion as I previously did. Anyway, here I am standing here waiting to see these guys I adored so much do their thing so many years, tours and albums ago.
You know it’s the headliner because ALL of the screens around the stage are in full force and blinding you. Their opening song being Pittsburgh had the crowd singing along with them, but not going ape-shit crazy. I got to be honest, as the songs went on, I was wanting more. We got the pyro; we got the paper cannon. I still just wanted more; I feel like I’ve seen that all before.
Being the 10-year anniversary tour of Let the Ocean Take Me we made our way through the 10 tracks. Perhaps it was where I was standing, but I struggled to clearly hear Ahren’s clean vocals and that sadly took away from the whole experience for me.
We got a video rundown of Amity’s history and throwbacks from over the years on the big screens, which is cool as fuck. The show was far from over, the back came back on stage for a lengthy encore, starting with I See Dead People from their studio album Not Without My Ghosts. After four or five more songs from over the years it all over, or so we thought! For their final encore they played It’s Hell Down Here then ended on the hugely popular Soak Me In Bleach.
I guess I personally was searching for more. I can’t ignore that mega fans got exactly what they wanted and enjoyed all the sing-alongs, but I found myself riding a crescendo that never peaked, just went back down. The hype and excitement I felt watching Ice Nine Kills was far too hard to match in this instance.
I doubt many bands of the modern era could follow Ice Nine Kills and better their show…
