It's 2024, and Filter have just kicked off their first headline tour of Australia in 24 years.
The excitement heading into The Croxton (5 April) was palpable, with the line-up for doors to open stretching long. Half an hour later, as the sole support act took the stage, the room was already packed.Black Smoke Trigger were an interesting choice for a support act to accompany the American industrial alt-rock mainstays throughout all six dates of this NZ and Australian leg of their world tour.
Hailing from Napier, a coastal city on New Zealand's North Island, and channelling an old-school, hard-rock energy that felt at times more akin to a spoof in 'Almost Famous' or 'School Of Rock', the band tried their hardest to get something out of the Melbourne crowd.
"I told my mum Melbourne crowds go crazy! Don't make me lie to her!" screamed vocalist Baldrick (. . . just 'Baldrick') after the build up to the final chorus in 'Proof Of Life' fell flat; and here I thought Melbourne crowds were famous for playing hard to get, locked in crossed arms and dour expressions through even the most electric of performances.
Baldrick is sporting a flowy white linen shirt, unbuttoned halfway to expose just the right amount of bare chest. It's a perfect look for their brand of showy, generic rock & roll, but this is a crowd in NIN and A Perfect Circle t-shirts, clearly here for the industrial edge of the headliner act. That's a sound which won't exist for at least another two decades on from the era Black Smoke Trigger are attempting to reignite.
While guitarist Charlie Wallace got to rip into a solo on every song, 'Blindfolds & Rattlesnakes' grants drummer Josh Te Maro the opportunity to let loose with his own break, a welcome change of pace in the set. Of course, Wallace immediately followed that with his own solo, twice as long.
There's another band from the North Island which could have been the perfect pairing for Filter, both in sound and fanbase: Shihad. Instead, Black Smoke Trigger were given the unenviable task of trying to win over a crowd that just weren't into that brand of rock & roll posturing.
While there were a couple of pockets in the crowd of people who were getting into it, the bulk of the audience remained firmly in place right through their set.
The moment the lights went off for Filter's set, though, the room erupted. It's a special occasion, being only the third trip the industrial-rock legends have ever made to Australia, with the previous being a 2014 run on the Soundwave line-up and supporting Volbeat's festival sideshows, and before that, the summer of 2000.
The importance of tonight's return was not lost on the crowd, who were in the palm of bandleader Richard Patrick's hand for the entire set – new songs and old alike.
Opening with 'You Walk Away', the first track on 2002's 'The Amalgamut' and carrying that energy into 'The Drowning', the opener from new album 'The Algorithm', the band hit the ground running with an aggressive 1-2 punch.
'For The Beaten' followed, a strange track from 'The Algorithm' that sounds like a long lost Skrillex beat during the verses, before shifting into an arena-rock anthem for the chorus. Similarly, 'Face Down' (from the same album) feels like it may owe Muse a songwriting credit for 2015's 'Psycho'.
'(Can't You) Trip Like I Do', their collaboration with The Crystal Method from the cult-classic 'Spawn' soundtrack pops up surprisingly early in the set, and is performed true to the recording, with the '90s trip-hop breaks played via sample in sync with the live band.
Patrick's falsetto vocals are perhaps a bit beyond his range in these later years, but thankfully it's only a handful of newer tracks ('For The Beaten' and 'Obliteration' the worst offenders), which expose the weak spot. That said, it doesn't appear to dampen this enamoured crowd's experience, with 'Obliteration' getting a huge response.
This is followed by 'The Take', with its Ministry-like pounding drums serving as the centrepiece. It's interesting to note how many of Filter's big crowd favourites aren't actually from their albums, with 'Jurassitol' serving as the second '90s cult soundtrack cut in the set. Needless to say, it goes off. (Sidebar, if you've never seen 'The Crow: City Of Angels', where 'Jurassitol' is from, you need to. Iggy Pop plays one of the henchmen, and the final showdown is backdropped by Deftones performing for free in a Halloween street festival. 10/10 no notes.)
The boldest move of the performance comes next, at the midway point of the set, with Richard Patrick casually announcing 'Take A Picture' like it's just another song. The whole room comes unglued, with the cheers eventually resolving into clapping along with the tempo of the song. Patrick is thrilled by this, enthusiastically waving his hands as a conductor with an imaginary baton, keeping the clapping on beat.
The crowd's own singing throughout the chorus nearly eclipses Patrick's, until he recaptures the focus in the finale of the song, reversing the lyrics to an updated "Hey son, what do you think about your dad now?" for a Cat's In The Cradle-esque perspective flip. As Patrick declared later in the set, he's now 55 years old, so perhaps it's more fitting for him in this revised form.
'Thoughts And Prayers', a single released prior to 'The Algorithm' but not included on that album, is a highlight from the newer material, with standout performances from bassist Bobby Miller and guitarist Johnny Radtke closing the song with backing vocals, yelling: "They got us right where they want us, at each other's throats."
This line was to be the original title of 'The Algorithm' album before the plans changed. As a consolation, at least the track is still performed in sets, as it definitely deserves the hype.
It was during this song where drummer Tosh Peterson, who had been battling to keep his busy fills in time throughout the entire night, finally tempted fate one too many times and had his Icarus moment, throwing his stick in the air and completely fumbling the catch.
With that said (and I mean this as a compliment), if they ever need to mo-cap Animal from 'The Muppets' with a real human drummer, Tosh is the man for it. Within just the opening handful of songs, he had surpassed the cardio weekly goals of most regular gym goers, frantically thrashing his body around and visibly breaking and dropping sticks regularly.
'Dose', instantly recognisable by its opening harmonics, saw Richard Patrick pick up his own guitar for the first time in the set. This addition was necessary for the song's discordant chord shift during its bridge, but it was very surprising that the amount of punch through songs like 'The Take' and 'The Drowning' had been achieved with just Radtke's sole guitar.
The final stretch lands the fan-favourites one after the other, with the slow burn 'It's Gonna Kill Me' heading into 'American Cliché' and the ferociously paced 'So I Quit', both off of 'The Amalgamut'. Hearing so many songs from this album, to my knowledge never played in Australia before this show, is truly special.
'Welcome To The Fold' and 'Hey Man Nice Shot' finish out the night, both met with soaring sing-alongs from the crowd. While earlier songs in the set ('What Do You Say', most egregiously) attempted to recreate the formula of 'Hey Man Nice Shot', nothing tops the power of the original, with its brooding bassline and atmospheric tremolo-drenched guitar.
Although warned that there would be no "fake encore" routine, and that these final songs were indeed that, the crowd was still chanting for one more song as the house lights came back on.
However, with Silverchair's 'Tomorrow' pumping through the PA, it didn't take long for the one-more-song contingent to latch on and realise they could karaoke it. "The water out of the tap is very. . . hard to drink!" roared the audience, gradually filing out into the street while singing. Just as good a final song for the evening as any.
