"It goes Blind Girls, then AC/DC, then Natalie Imbruglia."
Touché Amoré’s Jeremy Bolm is ranking his favourite Aussie acts from the Stay Gold stage in Melbourne (11 March), to loud cheers of approval.The venue is packed with elder emos, stretched ears and leg tattoos for days, all eager to sing-along with the Los Angeles five-piece's post-hardcore anthems.
Given the honour of opening the show, Melbourne's own Gil Cerrone did well to set the stage. Their opening number began as a mellow, midwest emo ballad before taking a whiplash-inducing turn into loud, explosive skramz.
With a growling bass flanked by two aluminium-necked guitars, their brand of mathy post-hardcore isn't clean 'show your working' maths, but 'hectic scribbling on the back of a receipt' maths.
As vocalist Michael Zuccon gesticulates in a frenzy with each scream, drummer Jordan Daniels leads from the back of the stage frantically switching time signature and tempo every couple of seconds while the rest of the band keeps up.
Perth's No Brainer were next up, rounding out the bill's emo bias with a more classic, straight-laced hardcore sound. Vocalist Charlie Williams makes it his mission to warm up the crowd in preparation for the Touché Amoré pit, encouraging a furore of two-stepping and swing kicks.
Williams' boundless high energy is undeniable, and he does well to keep it up throughout the set. Musically, No Brainer are shaped by their biting riffs (and even the odd guitar solo), that gives those braving this early moshpit plenty to work with.
For those unfamiliar, the Aussie post-hardcore scene has been fostering a skramz revival, and while Gil Cerrone are a staple of the local Melbourne offerings, few can compete with the level of intensity that Gold Coast's Blind Girls bring.
In their heaviest moments, where repeated discordant notes sound like the blaring of an alarm clock, they're reminiscent of Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, and Botch (soon to be touring Australia).
As the set goes on, Blind Girls create space to let their midwest influence shine through. With their Meshuggah-like rhythmic, metallic clanging pausing only to create blasts of amp feedback, the control each musician onstage has of their instrument is truly a thing to behold.
Vocalist Sharni Brouwer's blood-curdling screams might have been a hard sell for fans who only know Touché's catchiest of emo sing-along bangers, but this is a crowd of diehards and they were there for it.
When Blind Girls wrapped up their final song, the applause and cheering carried for a while. As stated in the opening line, the headliners knew it was something special too.
Making their long-awaited return to Australia for the first time since 2017, the energy in the room felt surreal and heightened, the excitement gathering ahead of the coming set from Touché Amoré (read our recent interview with the band).
For bands who choose to use another artist's song as their walk-out music, few nail it as perfectly as Touché Amoré, as Michelle Branch's 'Everywhere' pumped through the Stay Gold PA and sparked the first in a never ending run of sing-alongs for the set.
With a beaming smile plastered across his face, vocalist Jeremy Bolm took the mic and said four words: "From peaks of blue..." – the crowd roared back: "Come heroine!"
With that, the bodies were flying. Crowd surfing, stage dives, and every word of every song becoming a gang vocal as the energetic audience brought everything they had to a band who were responding in kind.
'Come Heroine' was followed by 'New Halloween' and 'Palm Dreams', the crowd karaoke continuing even when navigating such harrowing topics as a terminal cancer diagnosis. These are dark, emotional songs, but in a packed room with hundreds of people chanting every word together, they become spiritually uplifting.
Introducing 'Lament', the title track of their 2020 album, Bolm explains how devastated the band was to not be able to tour that album until well after its release.
Now, finally reaching Australia, these are their final tour dates before heading back into the studio. They note this Melbourne stop was one they'd been holding special anticipation for. There was no doubt as to why.
In a set list already bulging at the seams with fan favourites and anthemic sing-alongs, the band note that they "added a few older songs to the set tonight," before launching into 'Harbor' and 'Home Away From Here'.
I have never seen so much crowd surfing! It even interfered with the set at one point, a stage diver's leg catching on the mic cable as he ran between Bolm and bassist Tyler Kirby before launching himself into the pit – ripping the mic straight from Bolm's hand and dragging it down into the sea of bodies. Looking amused by the ordeal, Jeremy simply smiled and shrugged, the crowd having no problems singing along without him.
To be clear, this is on a Monday night following a 36-degree day. Getting even half of this energy out of a crowd in these circumstances would be a challenge for a lot of bands.
The temperature in the room is addressed when some audience members break into (shocker, another sing-along!) a rendition of Nelly's 'Hot In Herre'. Bolm then one-ups that, pointing out their rental car from the airport earlier that day had that exact song playing when they started it up, completing the perfect callback to an inside joke.
Following an emotionally charged run of 'Just Exist', 'Flowers And You', and 'Pathfinder', the set ends with '~'.
Despite the house music and room lights returning as the band departed (usually the ultimate tell the night is over), thunderous chants of "one more song" brought forth a genuine encore, with the band taking to the stage once more to perform 'Honest Sleep'.
Guitarist Clayton Stevens hopped on the mic to clarify: "We don't normally do this, but this is a really special night." Truer words could not be spoken.
