#aureview

the AU review’s Larry Heath caught up with Hiatus Kaiyote while at Austin’s SXSW festival. In amidst the chaos, band members Nai Palm, Paul Bender, Perrin Moss and Simon Mavin were able to take time out to chat about what it’s like playing SXSW again. “It’s almost just like there’s a bunch of industry people there to see if you can hack just trying to deal with the horrible bullshit,” Bender said. “But it’s not always bad!” Separating the boys from the men, as the old saying goes.

The band then goes on to talk about their new album Choose Your Weapon, saying “It’s definitely a mixed bag. Heaps of different inspirations recording wise and musically, so we mashed them all in together and create whatever we want.”

“There’s lots of animals on the album! There’s a jam I did with an owl and nothing else, just that. There is a cat…and my friend that’s a bird called Jolly Parker,” said an excited Palm. The band continues, detailing other special guests we can expect on the release and sadly ruling out Kanye West.

As I followed the crowds of Tattooed kids down to Luna Park, I was greeted to a massive 300m line. Only two years ago The Amity Affliction were playing to a 100 people in small venues, now they are selling out the Big Top; almost 3000 people busting down the doors to see the national heroes! What an achievement!

I just made it in time to catch Sienna Skies. They started off pretty shaky but grew stronger as the crowd responded positively. The Sydney based band worked the audience well, even opening up a circle pit during their short set. It was clear the local boys have a great fan base, they got the crowd jumping and singing, doing everything an opening band would hope to achieve.

Next up was Skyway, a 5 piece Pop Punk band from the Gold Coast. They pumped out standout tracks like “Birthdays” from their debut full length Finders Keepers along with my favourite: a fun, upbeat cover of Tracy Chapmans “Fast Cars”.

With the help of Troy from The Amity Affliction, the boys came through for the hardcore crowd with “You Promised the World, But Brought me an Atlas”; a hardcore influenced song with a heavy breakdown for all those kids hanging out for one! Skyway did very well considering they were the only pop punk band on a predominantly Hardcore line up.

Asking Alexandria are a UK based Hardcore band who absolutely know how to put on a show. The band brought the heavy breakdowns, synchronised head banging and the odd melodic hardcore song. The group opened up a total of three circle pits and one wall of death: Insanity! However, there was a lot of encouragement for crowd violence which I thought was a little over the top for an AA show - I hope St Johns were on hand! Apart from that, It was obvious Sydney loves Asking Alexandria, the crowd was crazy for them the whole set!

This was my first time seeing The Amity Affliction live and the very first thing I noticed was how amazing Ahren Stringer (Clean Vocals) sounds live. Incredible! Completely on key the whole time, JUST like the CD. All the years of touring have paid off because these guys were incredibly tight too.

The Amity Affliction played songs from both Full length albums such as “Snitches get Stitches”, “Fire or Knife” and “Anchors”. The whole big top had their arms in the air for the atmospheric hardcore ballad “Dr. Thunder”, and their encore "I Hate Hartley" went down a treat.

For what Asking Alexandria brought in Violence, The Amity Affliction made up for with a positive message. There was a “Wall of High Fives” and requests of “No Fighting during the set”.

Last weekend's show at The Workers Club in Melbourne has been reviewed on the AUreview website by Kat Mehina. Here's an excerpt below: 

"If you haven’t heard of Toy Balloon then now would be the time to jump on board the proverbial band wagon. In the two years that passed since Greg Cooper and co. played their last Melbourne shows, the band has improved immensely and their sound has evolved from the stripped back shoe-gaze electronic pop that featured on 2009’s glorious debut LP Toy Division to a full blown dance party that has a bit of house, new wave, funk, disco and hip-hop thrown into the musical blender. Due to the big line-up their set got cut short to a mere six tracks but Toy Balloon gave it their all regardless with guitarist Nimai Etheridge jumping on top of the speakers to boogie with the crowd and destroying the drum kit with his sax playing. They put on an incredibly tight performance with the band members in synch with one another while having a blast jumping around the stage to their happy electronic tunes. The new material sounds amazing live and one can only hope they’ll make it back down south soon. Toy Balloon are set to go off in 2011 and with a live show that good they fully deserve your adoration."

To read the full review go here.