Parkway Drive are a known legacy in Australian hardcore, one of our greatest exports to make waves on the international scene, cited as influences by some of the biggest hardcore/metalcore bands across the globe.
This tour comes on the back of the release of their new album, this year’s Atlas, and as they have consistently done in the past the band has again put in the time and effort for doing Aussie shows and visiting places that other artists miss.
The lineup for the night – with Survivor, Northlane, and I Killed the Prom Queen – really worked as a retrospective of Australian hardcore, bringing together the pioneers and the veterans with the offerings of more recent years.
It was a true testament to the genre’s development to its current thriving state. A tour sure to go down in hardcore history, especially when Northlane go on to be as big as they have the potential to be; judging by the chants of the band’s name and the beginning of a circle pit before the lights had even dimmed, which is unusual for an early opener.
It was a long awaited chance to see I Killed the Prom Queen again, or perhaps for the first time for newcomers. They tore through their set, which included new single “Memento Vivre”, with expected brutality, and somehow Jona Weinhofen (also of metalcore giants Bring Me The Horizon) even had the energy stored up for a guest DJ set at local venue SFX after the show.
The last time Parkway Drive played the Hordern Pavilion they had with them a crowd surfing Oompa Loompa in a life raft. Were they going to be able to top that this time?
The uproar that met them when they took the stage confirmed that even without the added novelties it was going to be one hell of a show.
As vocalist Winston McCall pointed out, the set was structured to build throughout the night, saving the fastest, deadliest tracks for the latter half of the set (although all of their songs are pretty high intensity-wise).
The set opened with a taste of their new album, the instrumental teaser “Sparks” building into “Old Ghosts/New Regrets”, a fantastic opener and one of the tracks which gave the floor the opportunity to chant along with McCall.
“Sleepwalker”, a favourite from Deep Blue showcased a strong beat, impossible not to headbang to, where “Romance is Dead” also got a strong reaction as fans appreciated some of the sounds from the early days.
The piece de résistance was the encore performance which capped off the night. “Home Is For the Heartless” showed off the unmatched talents of guitarists Luke Kilpatrick and Jeff Ling.
No surprises -the final song was their most well known track “Carrion”, an oldie and most definitely a goody. A spectacularly pumped up, energetic song that offered one last chance to go mental and to really let loose in the pit.
If you didn’t leave with a few bruises (or blood running down your face, like some of the more extreme punters) you were missing out on the best part of the action.
