A Day To Remember, The Devil Wears Prada & Dream On, Dreamer @ The Hordern Pavillion, Sydney (13/07/2013)
Since their inception ten years ago, pop-metalcore kings A Day To Remember have been gracing Sydney’s shores, headlining multiple tours with bands such as Underoath and The Used as supporting acts. With so many amazing shows under their belts, ADTR’s biggest challenge is to maintain that level of badass-ery that their Aussie fans crave. And of course this tour was no different.
Heading Down Under just six months after their Soundwave shows, ADTR’s “Right Back At It Again” tour saw Dream On, Dreamer and The Devil Wears Prada play to a sold-out Hordern Pavilion.
First up were five-piece Melbournian band Dream On, Dreamer. With guttural vocals and heavy guitars, the boys delivered an impressive half-hour set to a buzzing room. The acoustics were spot on, the energy both on- and off-stage was at a promising high, and you could tell the band was loving every minute of it. At only four years old, touring with the likes of ADTR must have been pretty awesome.
Carrying on the raw energy of the night was The Devil Wears Prada, who was equally as kick-ass. They treated us with a couple of new songs from their up coming album, which makes the release very promising. Lead singer Mike Hranica, however, looked almost like he was struggling. He was constantly leaning against the amps and bending over – I couldn’t tell if he was just overcome by the power of the music or if he was suffering something closer to motion sickness. Either way, the vocals and the band weren’t hindered. After a fairly successful set, Hranica thanked the crowd and gave a “God bless”, leaving some audiences a little bothered. Was that really necessary?
But then it was time for A Day To Remember. The banners were set up, the crowd swayed from over-excited teenagers, and the venue reached capacity. Opening with their newest single, Violence (Enough Is Enough), the boys simultaneously pumped the crowd up and reminded us exactly why they were there – to remind us that the band were still very much alive.
With streamers, beach balls, and massive plumes of dry ice shooting to the roof, the performance turned into entertainment. Jeremy McKinnon’s voice struggled in the beginning, relying on the crowd to push songs along, and he was disappointingly out of tempo at times. But he was soon to recover and led the band in delivering a pretty cool show. Having revealed that this was their single biggest headlining show ever played in the world, the crowd reacted by catching McKinnon’s attention with a four-man tower in the middle of the pit, which was pretty fucking incredible.
The highlight, however, was the four-song encore. McKinnon and Westfall played around with the crowd, belting out bits of ACDC, before delivering an acoustic version of It’s Complicated, followed by a perfect rendition of If It Means A Lot To You that made the whole room sing in unison. Ensuring that every single person left on a high, ADTR ended on The Plot To Bomb The Panhandle and their most well-known song The Downfall Of Us All, spraying the crowd with thousands of pieces of confetti.
A Day To Remember’s most current trip to Australia left Sydney temporarily satiated for the next few months until the fifth album unleashes another wave of hype. Ten years of ADTR and I’m sure we still haven’t seen them at their very best. But now, I’m going to have to end this review in an awfully clichéd but no less accurate way: A Day To Remember left us with a night not to be forgotten (sorry, not sorry).
Olivia Fusca
Heading Down Under just six months after their Soundwave shows, ADTR’s “Right Back At It Again” tour saw Dream On, Dreamer and The Devil Wears Prada play to a sold-out Hordern Pavilion.
First up were five-piece Melbournian band Dream On, Dreamer. With guttural vocals and heavy guitars, the boys delivered an impressive half-hour set to a buzzing room. The acoustics were spot on, the energy both on- and off-stage was at a promising high, and you could tell the band was loving every minute of it. At only four years old, touring with the likes of ADTR must have been pretty awesome.
Carrying on the raw energy of the night was The Devil Wears Prada, who was equally as kick-ass. They treated us with a couple of new songs from their up coming album, which makes the release very promising. Lead singer Mike Hranica, however, looked almost like he was struggling. He was constantly leaning against the amps and bending over – I couldn’t tell if he was just overcome by the power of the music or if he was suffering something closer to motion sickness. Either way, the vocals and the band weren’t hindered. After a fairly successful set, Hranica thanked the crowd and gave a “God bless”, leaving some audiences a little bothered. Was that really necessary?
But then it was time for A Day To Remember. The banners were set up, the crowd swayed from over-excited teenagers, and the venue reached capacity. Opening with their newest single, Violence (Enough Is Enough), the boys simultaneously pumped the crowd up and reminded us exactly why they were there – to remind us that the band were still very much alive.
With streamers, beach balls, and massive plumes of dry ice shooting to the roof, the performance turned into entertainment. Jeremy McKinnon’s voice struggled in the beginning, relying on the crowd to push songs along, and he was disappointingly out of tempo at times. But he was soon to recover and led the band in delivering a pretty cool show. Having revealed that this was their single biggest headlining show ever played in the world, the crowd reacted by catching McKinnon’s attention with a four-man tower in the middle of the pit, which was pretty fucking incredible.
The highlight, however, was the four-song encore. McKinnon and Westfall played around with the crowd, belting out bits of ACDC, before delivering an acoustic version of It’s Complicated, followed by a perfect rendition of If It Means A Lot To You that made the whole room sing in unison. Ensuring that every single person left on a high, ADTR ended on The Plot To Bomb The Panhandle and their most well-known song The Downfall Of Us All, spraying the crowd with thousands of pieces of confetti.
A Day To Remember’s most current trip to Australia left Sydney temporarily satiated for the next few months until the fifth album unleashes another wave of hype. Ten years of ADTR and I’m sure we still haven’t seen them at their very best. But now, I’m going to have to end this review in an awfully clichéd but no less accurate way: A Day To Remember left us with a night not to be forgotten (sorry, not sorry).
Olivia Fusca