Last night Northlane put on one of the best shows the Hindley Street Music Hall has ever hosted. It was the Adelaide leg of their Dante Australian Tour and the second last show of the run.
We arrived during Banks Arcade‘s set. It was 7:30pm, the sun was still out and the place was packed from shoulder to shoulder. They had the room amped from the get go with their nu-metal break stuff vibe. People were getting amongst it straight out the gate but the wildest thing was that almost the same amount of people were present to see them, the opening act, as there were for the headliner. That NEVER happens and is perhaps a sign of big things to come for the self proclaimed heavy metal boy band.
The highlight of the night was undoubtedly the frenchmen LANDMVRKS. 7 years ago I came across these guys as an unknown band on YouTube because they had an awesome metal cover of Fat Lip by Sum 41. They didn’t have any other music out at the time but the name was burned into my memory. Almost a decade later and the kids from that cover video are grown men touring Australia for the first time with some of the sickest original music in the scene and a stage presence that could captivate any human. To see them grow into a force to be reckoned with is awesome.
LANDMVRKS are the best thing to come out of France since Gojira. They effortlessly go back and forth between some of the most brutal gutturals and death-metal-esque instrumentals to melodic metalcore hooks with clean vocals, followed by quickly spitting ‘Rap God’ like bars in-between screams. Pair this with the guitarists kicking the air while the lead singer jumps around with ADHD like energy levels and its a wild show that had the crowd going nuts.
Next up were ERRA. These guys are the type of emo metalcore that triggers a very passionate response from their fans and you could feel it in the crowd. The energy was a little low to start but that was probably the comedown from the hectic-ness of the previous band. However, throughout the show the energy gradually built to an unexpected climatic ending that actually made me say out loud “that was intense”. My friend then turned to me and said “that felt like a headline set”, which it really did.
A funny moment occurred during their set when a laptop or phone connected to the PA received some type of notification and chimed during one of their songs. I’m only mentioning it because never before have I been watching a band perform and a notification tone starts playing over the speakers louder than the actual music during a guitar solo. Afterwards the lead guitarist asked if everyone could hear that because he noticed we were all smirking. It was actually kind of hilarious.
There were no technically difficulties for Northlane though. These guys came on soon after and put on one of the most stunning performances I’ve ever witnessed. It’s obvious that there was a lot of effort put into the visual effects used for this tour and it turned out sick.
The perfect aesthetic for their mix of heavy music and electronica. This combination is also a perfect recipe for a chaotic show with a wild crowd. One moment theres an EDM like break in a song that sounds like a scene in a villain’s night club from a 90s action movie, which gets everyone hyped, then next there’s a brutal breakdown and people start getting loose in the pit. At one point so many people were crowd surfing that it was essentially a looping conga line with a handful of people simultaneously getting charioted over the crowd to the front of the stage, the security guards would grab them and put them on their feet then they would run to the back of the crowd and do it again. This went on for a couple songs.
Their frontman Marcus Bridge really took the performance to another level with his rock star energy. He commanded all the focus and made the music feel massive. Their guitarist Jon Dailey also stood out. To see him rock out while while working the beat pad between shredding on lead was awesome.
It was an epic show that I would highly recommend to any fan of heavy music. Everything from the lineup, to the sound, to the design, to the size of the turnout and the chaos that ensued from start to finish contributed to an unforgettable experience.
written by Brad Hapke
