Anberlin are no strangers to Australia. In fact, one can say that they have a not-so-secret love affair with the country. This week saw the return of the band to our shores for the seventh time in about as many years. As a thank you to their “favourite country in the world”, Anberlin promised something special to the fans of Australia. Anberlin planned a series of shows exclusive to Australia simply titled “An Evening With Anberlin”. A live performance concept that they had as yet not explored as a band. We were interested to see if they could pull it off.
Tone Deaf arrived at The Palace in Melbourne city at about 8pm, to be met by a line of fans that wrapped around the building. It was cold and fans were anxious to get in. Thankfully, the line moved swiftly and on stage inside was the Sydney-based pop/punk band, Tonight Alive. At first, one might be convinced that the band on stage was a young Paramore. Jenna McDougall’s voice is very similar to that of Hayley Williams’ and Tonight Alive has just as much on stage energy and catchy songs as their American counterparts. They loved every minute of their 30 minute set, playing songs such as ‘Let It Land’ and ‘Starlight’.
After a forty five minute break, the lights dimmed and the sounds of a beating heart could be heard. After much build up, the band appeared on stage to rapturous cheers. Erupting on stage like a fireball of energy, they started the marathon of a set with the song ‘Dismantle.Repair’, the second last track from their third album. An unusual song to start a concert with, but then they had promised that this would be an unusual concert. For the first few songs, the vocals were a little unclear, a problem that would be fixed in time. On the third song of the evening, Anberlin invited Mark Stewart, of Melbourne band Jonesez, on stage to perform ‘Paperthin Hymn’ with them. The band went on to play ‘Pray Tell’, a track from their latest album which was played true to its recorded version with the addition of extra drums.
With just enough time in the short break between songs, vocalist, Stephen Christian, professed his love for Melbourne, mentioned the recording of a DVD and dedicated the upcoming song, ‘The Resistance’, to the fans in The Palace. The band continued with songs ‘Time and Confusion’, ‘Change The World (Lost Ones)’ and ‘Art Of War’. Christian challenged any other American band to top the amount of times Anberlin has been to Melbourne, jibing that they’ve played Melbourne more times than they have their own hometown of Orlando. He introduced a B-Side, entitled ‘Haunting’, before picking up an acoustic guitar. Lighters and mobile phones illuminated the crowd.
After a short break, Christian returned sitting on a stool while guitarists, Joseph Milligan and Christian McAlhaney, toned it down with acoustic guitars. They performed ‘The Unwinding Cable Car’ and ‘Alexthymia’ before the big surprise of the night. Travis Clark, from We The Kings, joined the band on stage along with Tonight Alive’s vocalist, Jenna McDougall, for a probably never-to-be-repeated stirring rendition of Crowded House’s ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’.
The band performed until just after the 2-hour mark including favourites such as ‘Feel Good Drag’, during which Stephen Christian threw down his mic stand and dived into the crowd, and ‘Impossible’. They also performed a spot on cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’. Towards the end of the show each member of the band took turns in answering their favourite questions that had been tweeted to them by fans. Christian’s personal favourite tweet was “Tell them to hurry the line up. It’s cold outside.” They ended the show with a rendition of Godspeed, but not before Christian told the crowd that they “would not leave the merch table until [they] had met every single fan there tonight”. And so it was.
Anberlin promised something special and they very much delivered on that promise.
– Brett Schewitz
