Progressive juggernauts Between The Buried And Me kicked off their Australian tour in style on Thursday night in Perth with a massively insane showcase of the weird and the wonderful. Joining the band were instrumentalists Chon who made their first appearance in Australia and local prog heroes Voyager who always put on a great show. Here are the highlights of what went down.
Tonight the metal masses of Perth witnessed something pretty special in the form of Voyager, Chon and Between The Buried And Me, most suprising was the volume of punters through the door to see hometown veterans Voyager take to the stage. Now as a lot of people know, they have built a loyal and rock solid fan base and with good reason. With diverse musical stylings that kept the early punters wanting more, frontman Daniel Estrin has a real stage presence about him with amazing vocal range and an uncanny ability to get the crowd involved and from where I was standing, the band as a whole looked right at home with a super tight rhythm section that set the pace for the night. Set highlights includes the tracks “Hyperventilating” and “You The Shallow”.
Next up were Australian tour first timers, San Diego oddball band CHON with long time fans simply chanting the bands name repeatedly. Now for the uninitiated of you reading this, CHON are a four piece instrumental progressive metal band but if I’m brutally honest, I don’t see the metal part of this band at all. Now this may being a first time listener of the band, I was unsure what to expect. While being technically great and super proficient at they’re craft, for me they would have been more fitting in a jazz club environment. Extremely laid back, almost to the point of a lazy Sunday session with very little interaction between the band and the crowd and sadly it left me feeling a little bit underwhelmed. Taking tracks from 2015’s “Grow”, 2013’s “Newborn Sun” and 2008’s self titled EP, the band entered just as they exited – quietly with very little to say apart from good evening Perth and goodnight. A strange and intriguing experience to say the least!
Now for the main event and the by now capacity crowd are here to see Between The Buried And Me take to the stage with the synthesizer driven behemoth “Swim To The Moon part 1”. Frontman Tommy Rogers was very reminiscent of a mad scientist and it is utterly mind blowing how talented and cohesive a band can be with a vocal range that went from an angelic choir to the seventh circle of hell in a split second.
The band stream rolled through a diverse set from the fairly recent track “Parallax” to the much much older slow groove of “Shevanel Cut A Flip”, the band proved for the entire set over and over again why they continue to be the pack leaders in terms of musical innovation and overall style with frantic energy and pace. You were left almost breathless with crowd sing along for the track “Foam Born”, I for one didn’t want the set to end! To take a line from the track “Shevanel Cut A Flip”, ‘whatever you do, don’t be bored’ and judging by tonight’s crowd and the overall feeling in the room, how could we possibly be bored. I don’t think so!!
BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2016.
Friday, 26th February: Fowlers Live, Adelaide Lic AA
Saturday, 27th February: Max Watt’s , Brisbane 18+
Sunday, 28th February: Metro Theatre, Sydney 18+
Monday, 29th February: 170 Russell, Melbourne 18+
Tickets available from Destroy All Lines
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Andrew “Schizodeluxe” Massie
