KARNIVOOL w/ Regular John

Sunday the 22nd of November, 2009. 42 plus degree heat. It was a heat wave sure enough to make you feel like the gates of hell had opened wide tonight. To coin a phrase - 'I was sweating just thinking about it'.

Take away the fact that the bar was going through 1000 litres of water every half hour and the sweat pouring off the sweat of every forehead inside and out of the venue this heat was sure to create a logistical nightmare. That said, I would like to put forth that both bands maintained their proffessionalism as well as one could expect despite the thermometer breaking 42 degrees that ensued with every passing song.

Always a treat to hear those all to familiar rock n roll riffs melded with self styled punk-ish vocals of sydney based quartet REGULAR JOHN through the speakers and fill out the room empty, crowded or not. Definitely becoming a regular support of popular rock/metal bands in the local gig circuit (Monster Magnet, anyone?) and it's always interesting to see a band develop further from their humble local-pub beginnings.

Bass turned up, assaulting the aural receptors with crowd favourite 'Abbatoir Noir' and grungey punk laid out 'We Spell Love' giving the crowd something to not just to bop their heads but to dance along to as well. The perfect build up. Insert random technical difficulty here. The heat playing havoc constantly with their instruments(a retune needed between every 2nd and 3rd song) you couldn't help but feel sorry for the boys from Sydney but this gave way for their proffessionalism to shine through entertaining the audience. You can never beat an old dad joke to appease everyone at a gig(“John Farnham should join Karnivool on-stage. Farnivool anyone?”).

Hats off to you, lads!

“Man we're pussies! We've got nothing to complain about because you guys in the pit are sweated your arses off!”

That's right Ian (Karnivool Singer), Newcastle sure know hows to party. KARNIVOOL were right though. It couldn't get any hotter, or could it?. Was barely heating up as Karnnivool took the stage tearing into intro track 'Simple Boy' off of Sound Awake.

As usual vocalist Ian Kenny's voice soared through the microphone on 'All I Know', hitting every note and leading the crowd through an epic journey with song-after-song of their progressive-sing-along-inspred brand of metal. Exactly the vibe you wanted from Karnivool as they tore into each song you ate it all up enjoying every morsel. The great point about seeing a band with just a couple releases under their belt is you can be sure to hear a bit of just about every album.

Not so. More just a run though of performing Sound Awake with the exceptions of cutting a song from here (EP – Persona) and there (Themata) but they blended each songs cleverly one after another in their setlist which made up for the lack of almost studio sounding performance.

The heat created a number of problems for Karnivool just like support Regular John but they could have made up for where they lacked energy this evening but this didn't stop Bassist Jon Stockman from near destroying the amps in 'Goliath' and 'Set Fire To The Hive' with his simple yet effective heavy grinding riffs.

Not going to take much away from KARNIVOOL given the almost fifty degrees heat but where they lacked energy tonight they definitely made up for with each song performed flawlessly.

One request for the next gig, Ian? Don't sweat all over me next time. Use a towel. It's bad enough getting it from the fat guy next to me in the pit!