An indication of Canberra’s fervour to see Karnivool was during their sound check, during which good-humoured technicians dutifully checked everything, and one stumbled across the tinny metronome-esque sample that heralds Sound Awake’s devastating first single Set Fire to the Hive.
The crowd roared, fists pumping, schooners spilling and moshers pre-emptively taking out their prize-winning elbows (“y’know, this elbow fights in the bantamweight division… by itself”) as if to enthuse that they themselves had been recently immolated.
Karnivool’s New Day tour has taken them around Australia with more sold out dates than not, the prog-metal rockers wowing audiences everywhere with their stunning songs and note for note musicianship. With Herculean displays of fret fury, inexorable, inexhaustible amounts of metre-defying drum lines and deftly sweet vocals, Karnivool’s Genghis Khan-like swoop of Australia was surely inevitable.
After a tedious forty five minute delay – signs of life. It was MM9, waiting in the wings, limbering up for a show in front of a crowd at least seven hundred strong. When they took to the stage, the crowd was warm and receptive, with only a limited amount of groans, as if the last thing that they expected and would abide by was a support act.
MM9 combined break-neck dance tempos, synthesised drum sounds and dirty nu-metal guitars, siren synths and a singer who stared at the crowd, theatrically livid, as if we did something to offend him personally in the days of yonder. Their consummate professionalism and highly polished set is and was to be commended, however, their act came off as highly contrived.
A glaringly obvious example of which was how members of the band tended to jump in a certain way, at a certain time, into a certain light that would frame them in a certain way – a tried and true method of convincing audience members how ‘rock’ they are.
By the end of their set, they had clearly won over a sizable amount of the audience, who whooped and cheered graciously, chuffed from having witnessed such a clean set delivered with no frills or spills.
The noise started to settle in, set-list demands and borderline desperate anticipation for the Perth act reached a deafening peak. But lo and behold, as the prophets foretold: they arrived.
Silhouetted in UFO green haze lights and smoke screens, they took their places, and vocalist Ian Kenny grinned and waved giddily at the dizzying display of support before the aforementioned tin drum sample returned with a vengeance, and they tore into the rage-riffs and soaring melodics of Set Fire to the Hive.
Musical savant Andrew Goddard was breathtaking, laughing at the mere concept of gravity with his carefully considered spidery fret weaving, drummer Steve Judd was water-tight and absurdly great, and Mark Hosking and Jon Stockman were meticulous to a degree of jaw-dropping finesse.
Ian Kenny: what a revelation. Commanding the audience with his super villain Spock appearance and super nerd starfish on springs impression, his ridiculous pipes were note perfect, alternating between angelic falsetto and powerful chest voice.
Kenny seemed to know all of this as well, singing “Oh no / This can’t be happening” in the certified epic Deadman, with its multi-metre glory and fastidiously arpeggiated riffs.
Their set was chockers of incredible material, journeys through ineffable soundscapes and riffs that are responsible for many bruises. The xylophone that began Simple Boy also started a near-riot, and the outrageous Themata put yet another rung on their awesome ladder.
In conclusion, a paraphrasing (profanity removal) of an actual quote from some random punter, as there is no way anyone can summarise it as eloquently: “It was like being kicked repeatedly in the crotch, but somehow really awesome!”
_tiny_thumb.jpg)
