By Jase W
The emo bandwagon is back ladies, gents and everything in-between, and tonight it’s making a stop at Melkweg with two heavyweights heading the bill in the form of Silverstein and Thursday. Along for the ride are new blood upstarts The Callous Daoboys and BLOOM.
I won’t lie to you, I’ve been wanting to see BLOOM for bloody ages and it’s their first foray over to the European continent and I couldn’t be more excited! They seem a bit crammed into the stage considering the sheer amount of kit on stage so they have to be a bit conscious of how much they move around which is a shame but my god are they going for the throat right from the start. These guys are paying homage to the post-hardcore of the early 2000s while putting that modern Aussie metalcore spin on it.
This is a band that despite opening is rolling with a meaty sound that is becoming of a proper headlining act. I’m actually pretty astounded by how well mixed this live performance is, the guitars are loud, clear, and crisp while the drums and bass thunder along and shake the floor while the vocals are fully in your face. It’s bands like BLOOM that are fuelling this incredible hotbed of amazing talent in Australia and getting to see them absolutely smash the fuck out of their set on the literal other side of the Earth like this shows that it’s not just talked up.
I was looking forward to BLOOM but this was totally above and beyond what I could have possibly hoped for.
Admittedly I wasn’t expecting an audience for a bunch of emo music to get quite so suddenly into The Callous Daoboys because… ya know… chaotic mathcore but quite happy with that anyway! I say, standing here in a Callous Daoboys T-shirt after making a fool of myself talking crap to them in the pub earlier. I’m very much enjoying my mates expressions as they switch gears hard enough to give the average emo whiplash too, great fun.
Look right, I like these a lot so I kind of know the drill but clearly the audience is a bit split along the lines of people who embrace weird stuff like these and others that are very very puzzled by why The Callous Daoboys can’t seem to stick on a single genre for more than 45 seconds while dumping bizarrely timed chugs in every other minute for good measure.
I do feel the set so far has been a bit… normal for the most part so they’ve probably taken a bit of care to tone down their more eccentric ‘Celebrity Therapist’ or ‘Die On Mars’ material. Well I say that, but I literally just typed that they hit ‘Starbaby’ and along with it a pit erupts in the middle with swinging arms and the lot, well up until the point where the singalong happens and people wave their arms around to the uh… ballad bit.
Okay well I suppose what they’ve done for the set is used the first 15 minutes or so as time to lube up the fist shaped insert before ramming it in whatever available orifice was available for the second half. “Amsterdam I wanna see this fucking room Hhamster dance” as they launch into ‘A Brief Article Regarding Time Loops’ and getting the pit going by asking the very Amsterdam crowd to “pretend your best mate is a Feynoord fan”: the pit fully erupts, as is tradition. I wanted my Callous Daoboys and that’s exactly what I got, fuck yeah.
After a brief excursion to pick up merch and another beer, back down to the usual perch to grab a spot for Thursday. You want some Jimmy Eat World style emo with some more aggressive vocals? Then it’s Thursday ya need. On a Thursday. Because that’s today. Anyway, the energy of the venue is picking up a lot more as is now packing out for the one-two punch of Thursday and Silverstein so fill your boots with some emo-y goodness. The openers for tonight’s double emo bill have done a brilliant job of getting everyone warmed up though, Thursday don’t even need to try to whip people up in the pit as everyone’s going bonkers anyway. It’s like everyone here knows Thursday well enough to the point where the band don’t really need to worry too much about direct interaction which is quite a special relationship that I don’t think many bands can claim to have.
Admittedly for myself I don’t find myself connecting with the live performance super well, but I can definitely emphasize that at a base level it’s a solid and well put together show but I feel like I’m not enjoying it as much as others are. This isn’t really a familiarity thing either as I’ve consistently loved shows by bands I have a passing interest in but this almost feels like it’s trying to reproduce a 1:1 sort of copy of their recorded material instead of being a bit more loose with it. To be clear there was nothing wrong with their live set but I didn’t really feel like there was anything that was really spectacular about it, it was okay and that was about as much as I can say unfortunately.
Silverstein opens their set with a nostalgia trip back to the late ’90s and a story about how they built their band in the early years. I’ve never seen so many emo fringes on a video in such a short space of time. I feel like this has roused me out of my lull and I’m feeling myself fully engaged on Silverstein and I can clearly hear that the audience has connected with the ‘Antibloom’ material, which is great considering the full album has only been out for two weeks. The production they’re rolling with is pretty great also, two screens either side of the drum kit as well as one beneath in front of the drum riser. Way more audience engagement for this set to and as the pit opens up, it erupts into a flurry of people slamming into each other and expands to the fringes of both sides of the venue.
Silverstein didn’t have to spoil us with 60+ fps videos for their backing visuals but they did, and it was appreciated, by me anyway. This is the sort of show I like to take a moment to scan around the crowd to take in how everyone else is enjoying the show and it’s a super enthusiastic “yes” from every single beaming face and flailing arm waving around in the air. There’s enough oomph to really drive home parts the band wants people screaming the words to which helps to properly drive home the punch.
Silverstein have a fantastic live sound too, just the right amount of punchy and thickness so as to feel it as much as hear it. Somehow Silverstein still managed to make the time between songs to sign something for a random audience member, don’t ever say they don’t give the crowd what they want.
Between the constant flow of crowd surfers, almost constant onslaught of bangers from Silverstein, chorus of voices singing along to every song, I’ve ended up tunnel visioning on the performance, completely absorbed. And it carries me all the way to a properly epic finale that wraps up a great set and performance that fully commanded my attention from start to finish as Silverstein took us on a journey deeper and deeper into their history.
This sort of show is how you do a proper celebration of your work, hope the rest of the tour goes down a storm!
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