Imagine if your band’s first ever gig was supporting a major label Californian band that has spent five years establishing themselves on the post-hardcore scene globally.
That’s exactly what happened to the young lads of Placeholder in their home town of Melbourne at AM//PM Emo Night, The Colonial Hotel (22 March).
They’d spent two years preparing themselves for this moment, bringing everything you love about sweet, sweet alternative post-hardcore (whatever you wanna call it) to an audience who already knew some of the words.
Brisbane outfit Awaken I Am filled the space in between with depth and grace, of voice and groove, touring their brand new single ‘Kin’, after replacing their vocalist as well as their guitarist (RIP Connor) in the last year.
It’s important to them that they keep going, and keep Connor’s dream alive and the album they’re working on, ‘The Beauty In Tragedy’, is a tribute to him, save for the two songs which he had been present for.
Slaves are touring their 2019 EP ‘Revision' with a brand-spanking new vocalist, Matt McAndrew, who joined the tour later than last minute (they had to cancel just one show), and learned the songs on the plane just a month ago.
You can’t tell: he’s seamlessly melded with them. They’re a tight unit and his voice is outstanding (well, he was runner-up on ‘that’ TV show). Makes you wonder if they’ll keep him around after this fill-in adventure?
The guitarists switch roles and guitars and voices, it’s like watching a beautiful family at play; there’s diversity in their set including a couple of acoustic guitar appearances.
“Thank you for letting me get these feelings off my chest,” Matt says toward the end of their set. “Letting me point at ya, look at ya.”
