Live Review: A Day To Remember, The Devil Wears Prada, Dream On, Dreamer

Although they’ve been recording and performing for a decade now, A Day To Remember’s gradual trajectory may be unfamiliar, even to some of their earliest fans. Selling out Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Saturday night, Brisbane’s Riverstage the night prior and Melbourne’s Festival Hall the night following, the Florida five-piece have never been a band to operate in the shadows of the post-hardcore and punk scene. But when pint-sized frontman Jeremy McKinnon declared four-songs in that the 5,500 capacity show was their biggest yet, the cheers were equally met with small nods of surprise.

Opening support band Dream On, Dreamer have been hard to fault since the release of sophomore full-length Loveless last month. The record debuted inside the top 30 on the ARIA Chart and now, will a brand new lineup, the Melbourne band had the chance to showcase new tracks live to an audience that had been slightly out of their reach. Opening with the record’s title track and first single The World In Front Of Me, the Hordern didn’t seem to have a pulse until third trackDownfall. Perhaps it was the foreign fanbase, but for those who had been following the band since 2009, it was frontman Marcel Gadacz’s demeanor that disappointed. His once peculiar stage presence, complete with a serpentine flow and an inward stance was now an intense, stock-standard projection of mixed fevour and power stances.

:: SEE HERE FOR THE LIVE GALLERY

Ohio Christian metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada were as beguiling as they were anomalous. Over eleven tracks which borrowed from 2009‘s With Roots Above and Branches Below, 2010’s ode to the undead – Zombie EP and even two tracks from this year’s yet-to-be-named Dead Throne successor, the band were rabid, even if that meant exchanging instrumental precision for chaos. “Sydney I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” said frontman Mike Hranica before the obligatory expression of God gratitude.

When A Day To Remember took the stage, the initiated expected the smoke, the rolls of toilet paper and even the streamers, however they didn’t expect them all in the first five minutes. Wisely performing just two new tracks, opening with first single Violence (Enough Is Enough)and later introducing the set’s corny letdown Right Back At It Again, ADTR incited the continuous rolling of bodies over the barricade moments from the get-go. I’m Made Of Way Larry, What Are You Made Of? with guest-in-the-flesh Mike Hranica received one of the more raucous greetings; a slew of bottles, cups and shoes seemed to target nominal leader McKinnon. “You almost knocked me the fuck out and I’m about to say something real nice to you guys,” he said, before declaring the show was the band’s biggest of their career.

:: READ OUR 2012 INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY MCKINNON

With a four-tier shoulder ride towering in the crowd while one zealot surfed past in an inflatable boat, it was difficult to find a blemish in the 90-minute set. “We’ve been doing this work out called Insanity and I’ve never seen more power than right there,” said McKinnon.

Excluding the impromptu opening chords of Tenacious D’s Tributeand AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long during the four-track encore, A Day To Remember’s set was carefully orchestrated, right down to the synchronised kick jumps and across-stage skipping between guitarists Neil Westfall and Josh Woodard. The rhetoric of self-belief and social disappointment together with bright imagery, coloured streamers, confetti, a t-shirt gun, beach balls and orchestrated onstage antics remained formidable and modestly unapologetic. If this band gets any more adventurous, we may see them in an arena next time around.