| Soundwave Festival 2011 - THE AMITY AFFLICTION |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Sunday, 20 March 2011 21:47 |
 Hometown heroes THE AMITY AFFLICTION were not only the only Australian band to grace the stage at all five Soundwave dates this year, they also hail from Queensland so needless to say, the crowd gathered for their performance was large, loud and proud. Their 2010 release ‘Youngbloods’ debuted at Number Six on the ARIA charts and boasts numerous inclusions on ‘best of’ lists from the end of last year, so I was excited to see how the Aussie boys would stand up against the huge international acts surrounding them at the festival. Opening up with ‘I Hate Hartley’, the opening line "seems like forever" felt more like a battle cry as the crowd overpowered vocalist Joel Birch - fists in the air and all. The back-and-forth flow between Birch’s screams and bassist/clean-vocals Ahren Stringer worked well, however at times the vocals seemed to get lost beneath the wall of sound coming from the band - an issue more with the sound mix than the band itself.  Bringing out a ‘crowd surfing reaper’ for their track ‘Youngbloods’ brought an element of surprise to their set - at least for me, an Amity Affliction concert virgin - and when the band brought out Jona Weinhofen from Bring Me The Horizon for ‘I Heart Roberts’ one couldn’t help but feel the love from the crowd, with both their hometown heroes on stage. Ending the set with their ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ cover, I was impressed with the energy and level of professionalism from the local act and can definitely see why the band were picked as the only local act to play the entire tour, as well as having U.S. tours lined up in the near future. |
