It was a busy day at Homebush. Aside from Parkway Drive attracting a full house of 20,000 people, there was the Bledisloe Cup match and Comic Con all in the same Olympic area. This business contributed to production delays that unfortunately meant that Void of Vision and The Ghost Inside couldn’t take the stage as planned.
With doors open at 4pm, the crowd had built steadily and each door had lengthy lines wondering why they couldn’t come inside. Some small blue screens mentioned the fact that the opening bands wouldn’t be able to perform.
A couple of hours on and the doors opened. Riots were averted and I Prevail prepared for their turn. With Parkway Drive’s stage taking up a lot of space behind them, they didn’t have a lot of room to move, but came with a high energy set.
“I know it’s early, but get bouncing,” demanded Eric Vanlerberghe , and a large chunk of the crowd obeyed. As main support, and in this case the only support, I Prevail were tasked of warming up the crowd and by the end of the set the crowd was well and truly ready for action.
Opening up with “There’s Fear in Letting Go”, the band had parts of their lyrics powering across numerous screens before them. Sitting at the angle I was, it was actually a few songs before I caught sight of their drummer, who was placed within the wall of screens.
I Prevail have a big nu-metal influence, which got the crowd bouncing. with their dual singer attack alternating between the growling and the clean vocals and the occasional rap verse. Midway through, they threw in their version of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”. Having released this a decade ago, they are probably sick of playing that.
Towards the end of the song they said, “We don’t really want to play this but you like it, this is for you. But this part is for us,” followed by the final blastbeats and breakdowns that complete their take on the song.
The line in “Self Destruction” – “If you don’t know the devil, then you don’t know me”, got the call and response treatment, with the crowd getting louder and louder as the band demanded.
Most songs came from 2022’s True Power, with an enthusiastic crowd bouncing and creating various circle pits across the floor. At one stage, two of the larger circles merged together, becoming a wall of bodies.
“Hurricane”, a mental health anthem, showed more of their pop chops, while the aggression came back in through “Bow Down” and their final track “Gasoline”. With multiple visits to Australia in recent years, it will be no surprise to see them return sometime soon.
As the crowd prepared for the main event, Aus rock classics blared over the speakers. Silverchair’s “Freak”, “Working Class Man” by Cold Chisel and others. Some might say this was Parkway Drive announcing they are on that kind of level these days.
The arena tour was celebrating 20 years as a band. In this time they have grown from a group of surfy guys from Byron Bay playing shows in basements, pubs, PCYCs into one of the biggest heavy bands in the world. The term “biggest band in Australia” has been thrown around, but I feel Angus Young, Kylie Minogue and the Blue Wiggle might like a word.
After a few more Aussie rock classics, two large black flags could be spotted in the audience. Then we had the band making their way from the back to the front. The flags waved through and paved a way for the band to take the stage. There was almost a liturgical movement to how the procession moved through the crowd, as a priest enters a church.
The five members crammed on to a small square that was in front of where I Prevail had played, as they had walked down through the crowd, the chant went up – PARK-WAY DRIVE, PARK-WAY DRIVE, and clips of their journey through the 20 years played on the screens.
With the band taking their instruments, a drumkit rose through the stage for Ben Gordon to sit at, and we heard the opening bars of “Carrion” and that was all it took for the crowd to erupt. Through the set, Winston McCall had the crowd in his hands. There was no pause for breath as they moved straight into “Prey” from Reverence and the crowd kept moving with them.
After completing this song, they looked towards the stage, which until this point had been covered. With appropriate fireworks, the curtain revealed a huge stage area, and a bridge lowered for the band to cross and move into “Glitch” from their most recent album before throwing back to “Sleepwalker”.
Throughout the set there was a fair mix from across their albums, though Atlas and Deep Blue only had one track from each. There was more than just the band playing. From the opening moment there were dancers, there were fireworks, the bridge would move up and down, sometimes carrying members of the band and guests.
For “Boneyards” the bottom of the small stage popped up and up popped I Killed The Prom Queen’s Michael Crafter for a guest performance. Winston talked about how he had supported them from day one. I feel there was missed opportunity to bust into “Swallowing Razorblades” from the Parkway/Prom Queen split, but instead they went into “Horizons”, which has been absent from their setlist for many years.
For “Cemetery Bloom”, Winston changed from his all-white suit, to an all black number. A spiked microphone stand stood at the front of the stage and his whispered growls. There is certainly a change in look from the Parkway frontman. No more bodyboard brand t-shirts and boardies.
For those who wanted to go way back to the heavy days of their debut album, there was a mashup. As the band described, they didn’t want people to miss this or that song, so they built a monster “Killing With A Medley”, condensing the Killing With A Smile album into a quick fix of heaviness. It started with “Gimme A D” and continued with selected areas from various tracks, before playing almost all of “Smoke ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em” while the crowd was in full voice for “Romance is Dead”.
Throughout the set, Winston would constantly remind the crowd, “if you were here at the Manning Bar, at a PCYC on the Central Coast, or if this is your first time seeing us, this is for you.” With the huge stage, the members of the band could move here and there, coming out onto their original platform, occasionally rising on the bridge.
For “Wishing Wells”, Winston stood on the platform in the rain, challenging God and the devil in the opener to Reverence. Every now and then, he would disappear from view. At one stage he appeared towards the back of the crowd, bringing up a lady who had crowdsurfed multiple times on a wheelchair. The crowd formed a circle pit around the area and Winston followed that by surfing his way back to the stage.
While there were no bodyboards, inflatable crocodiles, liferafts or other additions the crowd on the floor looked to be having a great time. At one stage the bridge had risen and the string ensemble was hidden above the band. When the band kicked into “Chronos”, they were in full flight. I had seen them once before with the strings, but in that case they were apart from the band. In this case, they were fully involved, after being lowered on the platform they entered the stage headbanging, they were duelling with the other guitarists and looked to be loving every moment.
Things got a little lighter with “Darker Still”. Afterwards Winston said, “You’ve had your drinks break, zero to one hundred, let’s go” and the band powered into “Bottom Feeder”. After demanding the crowd to get their hands up, McCall said “now get your feet up – jump, jump, jump.”
In “Crushed” you could see why the stage might take some time to set up. It was hard to know where to look. Opening with a big drum solo, with Ben starting to rotate in his drum wheel, the rest of the band joined in, and the dancers threw down firecrackers which had more and more fire. Guitarist Jeff Ling was up above the crowd on the bridge, which had fire coming from it and the drums continued to rotate throughout the set.
With this huge finish I wondered if they would have anything left to give. The band got together and came back to the small square where they started out, thanking the crowd and noting. “This isn’t just about us, look where heavy music is in Australia, look at what you’ve built over these 20 years.”
Adam D from Killswitch Engage, who produced Killing With A Smile, gave a tongue in cheek comment on social media for the band’s 20 years. “I’m surprised you’ve got so far given your level of talent”. The band could hit back with a comparative photo, Killswitch played the same venue a week before opening for Iron Maiden and had the crowd about half full, Parkway have filled arenas across Australia.
It is not only this, the band has built there stagecraft over all these years. What we saw in Sydney, with 20,000 others was more than just a hardcore or metal show. This was a theatrical event. Who knows what comes next for this band from Byron Bay.
Photos by Drew Fulton & Review by Daniel Boyle
Parkway Drive:
I Prevail:
